Russians have been deporting residents of Ukrainian lands for over three centuries. Nothing has changed

03.11.2022, 11:29 babel.ua

Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, almost 1.6 million Ukrainians have been deported to Russia from the temporarily occupied territories. The occupiers also forcibly took over 7,000 Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation. This has been happening under various Russian regimes since the beginning of the 18th century. At that time, the tsarist authorities forcibly resettled Ukrainians from the right bank of Dnipro River to the left bank and took them to the construction of St. Petersburg. And in Soviet times, under Stalinʼs rule, deportations became part of state policy. Millions of Ukrainians, Poles, Germans, and representatives of other nations were taken to the most remote Russian regions. With special methodicality the Russians exterminated the Crimean Tatars. “Babel” mentions mass deportations that Russia has organized on Ukrainian lands over the past three hundred years. Deportations of Ukrainians in the Russian Empire The first mass deportations from Ukraine on national grounds took place at the beginning of the 18th century. Then, by order of the Russian Tsar Peter I, thousands of Ukrainians were forcibly sent to hard work to build St. Petersburg and lay the Ladoga Canal    information reference Built at the beginning of the 18th century, it is a 117-kilometer waterway along the shore of Lake Ladoga, connecting the Volkhov and Neva rivers. . For the first two years, ten thousand Cossacks annually were sent to work just for the construction of the canal. Then the quota was halved. But not because they decided to feel sorry for the Cossacks. Itʼs just that Tsar Peter, who declared himself emperor, got involved in a military adventure — he demanded to conquer the way to India and started a campaign    information reference The march of the Russian army in 1722-1723 to Transcaucasia and Dagestan, which then belonged to Persia (modern Iran). As a result, Russia occupied the western and southern coasts of the Caspian Sea.  in the area of the Caspian Sea. Therefore, part of the Ukrainian Cossacks was simply diverted from construction work to the war.