As long as you’re a U.S. ally, you can get away with anything. From Stephen Karganovic at strategic-culture.su:
It is impermissible for civilians to be used as props for political propaganda narratives.
The neo-Nazi regime in Kiev engages in an unperceived, generously glossed over but extremely grave violation of humanitarian principles. It is one of many breaches in that regard, of course. But it must be held to account for this and ultimately for every single one.
In the zone the regime still controls in Ukraine, as Russian troops advance the neo-Nazi junta compels the local population to abandon its habitations and to withdraw alongside the retreating Ukrainian armed forces. Since generally that occurs in predominantly ethnically Russian areas, the reluctance of the population to withdraw with what it regards as occupation troops is understandable. For that reason, this hideous practice on the part of the Ukrainian authorities also unmistakably exhibits the legal elements of ethnic cleansing.
The political objective behind these compulsory population movements is to project the propaganda illusion that the civilian population in Ukraine are averse to the arrival of Russian forces and would prefer to live under Kiev regime rule.
Reports of forced deportation of local residents are plentiful (also see here, here, and here). A quick search of the internet will yield much additional evidence.
Western governments and “human rights monitors” have remained utterly silent about this egregious conduct, which in the past they would have denounced vociferously whenever the perpetrators could be presented as actors hostile to the collective West’s political interests. In the present case, however, the perpetrators happen to be their Ukrainian proxies, recently rewarded with another tranche of multibillion dollar largesse. Hence the studious silence of the Western governments and media. The enablers are loath to publicise their vassals’ transgressions.
Those who don’t know the truth are dummies, but those who know the truth, and call it a lie, are criminals.
Bertold Brecht