Banned from home for 40 years: deportations are Russia’s latest move to ‘cleanse’ Ukraine

A deal freezing frontlines would be unacceptable for Serhiy Serdiuk, who was taken to Georgia in handcuffs with his family after refusing to teach the Russian curriculum

Earlier this year, Serhiy Serdiuk was deported from Russia, along with his wife and daughter. He was given a 40-year ban from re-entering the country.

Serdiuk's home town of Komysh-Zoria, in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, was part of the territory occupied in the first weeks of Russia's full-scale invasion in spring 2022. According to Moscow, it is now part of Russia. And because Serdiuk, the headteacher of a local school, refused to work for the new authorities, they decided he had no place living there.