TREATMENT OF RUSSIANS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 136, 11 June 1945, Page 6

TREATMENT OF RUSSIANS

BRITISH OFFICIAL REPLY TO

CHARGES

LONDON, June 10. The British Foreign Office has replied to charges in a Moscow broadcast about the treatment of Soviet citizens liberated in western Europe.

I Among accusations by the Soviet 'Commissar for Repatriation, was one .th'afrrepatriation had been slow. The Forejgn Office says that the fault for this lies with the Soviet Government, which provided no shipping whatever for taking the Soviet citizens to their [homeland. All shipping, apart from jone American vessel, was found by [Britain at the cost of shipping for other ivital needs.

Another Russian complaint was that 1700 Soviet citizens were kept in Britain in three camps whose existence was concealed from the Russian authorities. The British answer is that the Russians and their camps were cunder the exclusive control of the [United States military authorities in Britain, as had been explained, to the Soviet Government. The head of the .Soviet military mission in London had visited them after being told of their ■existence last autumn, and from the beginning of this year full weekly reports had been' sent to the appropriate ■'Russian authorities.

' Another complaint was that the(living conditions of liberated Soviet Jcitizens at present in western Europe were altogether bad. The British reply Stresses the great difficulties in feeding and. housing the vast numbers of Allied (nationals in western Germany, but Seven so, many thousands of Russian 'citizens have been lodged in camps jwhere everything possible is being ■done for their welfare. There is no doubt, the statement adds, that their conditions compare more than favourably with those of large numbers of British citizens in Sovietloccupied territory.