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       Russian officials and occupation authorities may be preparing for a mass deportation of Ukrainian citizens from occupied territories to the Russian Federation.

       The US media giant Bloomberg reported that the Russian Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin, issued a government order in mid-December on “revenue mobilisation” that allocated up to €2.5 billion in extra spending for what Moscow calls ‘the potential resettlement’ of residents from the Kherson region to Russia.

       Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk responded to the Russian government’s order, stating that Russian officials and occupation authorities may be planning to deport more than 100,000 residents from the Kherson region to Russia under fears that Moscow's forces may lose further territory in war-torn Ukraine.

       Vereshchuk also said that Russian officials have forcibly resettled an unspecified number of Ukrainian citizens to 57 regions in Russia, including the Far East and Siberia.

       Wartime Deportation

       The Institute of the Study of War (ISW) continues to assess that the forced deportation of Ukrainian citizens to the Russian Federation likely amounts to a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign, in addition to apparent violations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

       The think tank says that Russian occupation authorities are struggling to coerce residents in occupied territories to accept Russian passports.

       Mass deportation Ukraine

       According to Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, Russia continues to resettle Ukrainian citizens.

       Zaporizhzhia's Russian-appointed regional governor, Yevhen Balytskyi, reported that Russian authorities are looking for more employees to work at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), as approximately 1,500 ZNPP workers refused to accept Russian passports and sign a contract with the Rosatom nuclear power plant to receive passes to access the ZNPP.

       In addition, the ISW said Russian authorities continue to import Russian citizens to serve in civilian roles in occupied territories.

       The Kremlin has not commented on reports of forced deportation or the 'filtration' of Ukrainian citizens to Russia.

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       After a day of relentless strikes on Saturday, five people are reported dead and 27 injured in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, with a large complex being directly hit.

       According to the head of the city’s military administration, Valentin Reznichenko, it is possible that there are still more people trapped under the debris of the destroyed building.

       Meanwhile, Kyiv has also experienced explosions, with air raid sirens sounding afterwards. It comes amid claims from the leader of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, that they are in full control of the Donbas town of Soledar.

       Click on the video above to see more.

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       Thousands of people demonstrated in persistent rain on Saturday to protest the clearance and demolition of a village in western Germany that is due to make way for the expansion of a coal mine.

       There were standoffs with police as some protesters tried to reach the edge of the mine and the village itself.

       Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg joined the demonstrators as they protested the clearance of Luetzerath, walking through the nearby village of Keyenberg and past muddy fields. Protesters chanted “Every village stays” and “You are not alone.”

       Organizers said about 35,000 people took part, while police put the figure at 15,000. On the sidelines of the protest, police said people broke through their barriers and some got into the Garzweiler coal mine.

       Some who tried to get to the edge of the mine were pushed back. And German news agency dpa reported that police used water cannons and batons just outside Luetzerath itself, which is now fenced off, against hundreds of people who got that far. The situation calmed down after dark.

       Some protesters have complained of what they say was undue force by police and about the size of the police response this week. Police, meanwhile, said some demonstrators had thrown fireworks at officers and damaged patrol cars.

       Thunberg said the fate of Luetzerath and the expansion of the mine matters far beyond Germany.

       In the global fight against climate change, “what everyone does matters,” she told The Associated Press shortly before the protest. “And if one of the largest polluters, like Germany, and one of the biggest historical emitters of CO2 is doing something like this, then of course it affects more or less everyone — especially those most bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.”

       As the demonstration took place, the clearance of Luetzerath was well advanced.

       The operation to evict climate activists holed up in the village kicked off on Wednesday morning. In the first three days of the operation, police said that about 470 people had left the site, 320 of them voluntarily.

       They said on Friday afternoon that there were no longer any activists in the remaining buildings or on their roofs. They said Saturday they still had to tackle 15 “structures” such as tree houses and were trying to get into a tunnel in which two people were believed to be holed up, dpa reported. Work to demolish buildings was already underway.

       Luetzerath has become a cause celebre for critics of Germany's climate efforts.

       Environmentalists say bulldozing the village to expand the Garzweiler mine would result in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The government and utility company RWE argue the coal is needed to ensure Germany’s energy security.

       The regional and national governments, both of which include the environmentalist Green party, reached a deal with RWE last year allowing it to destroy the abandoned village in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038.

       Some speakers at Saturday's demonstration assailed the Greens, whose leaders argue that the deal fulfills many of the environmentalists' demands and saved five other villages from demolition.

       “It's very weird to see the German government, including the Green party, make deals and compromise with companies like RWE, with fossil fuel companies, when they should rather be held accountable for all the damage and destruction they have caused,” Thunberg said.

       “My message to the German government is that they should stop what's happening here immediately, stop the destruction, and ensure climate justice for everyone.”