Ukrainian civilians disappear and languish in Russian prisons

Kyiv, Ukraine — Alina Kapatsyna often dreams that her mother is calling her. In these visions, her mother tells her that she is coming home.

In April, men in military uniform took Vita Gannich, 45, from her home in eastern Ukraine. She never returned.

Her family later learned that Gannych, who had suffered from seizures for a long time due to a brain cyst, was being held in the Russian-occupied part of the Donetsk region.

Kapatsyna told The Associated Press that it remains unclear why her mother, a “peaceful, civil and sick person” who never held a weapon, was detained.

Gannich is one of many Ukrainian civilians detained by Russian forces in the months following their invasion. Some are considered prisoners of war, although they never took part in hostilities. Others are in some kind of legal limbo – they have no criminal charges or are considered prisoners of war.

Khannich was wearing only a tracksuit and slippers when she was captured by Russian troops occupying her village of Vladimirovka a few weeks after the February 24 invasion. It is still under the control of Moscow.

At first, her family thought that she would return home soon. According to Kapatsyna, Russian forces were known to detain people for two to three days for “filtering” and then release them, and Gannych had no connections either in the army or in law enforcement.

When she was not released, Kapatsyna and her 64-year-old grandmother began searching. At first, letters and visits to various Russian officials and state bodies in the Donetsk region did not yield any results.

“From everywhere there were the same answers: “We didn’t take her away.” Who took it then, if no one took it? said Kapatsyna, who left the village in March for the Ukrainian-controlled city of Dnipro.

Then they finally had some clarity: According to a letter from the Moscow-created prosecutor’s office in Donetsk Oblast, Gannych was imprisoned in Olenevka, another Russian-controlled city.

Colony staff told grandmother Kapatsyna that Gannych was a sniper, but her family considers this absurd given her condition. Medical records seen by the AP confirmed that she had a brain cyst, as well as “residual encephalopathy” and “generalized seizures.”

Anna Vorosheva, who spent 100 days in the same detention center as Gannych, spoke about the miserable, inhuman conditions: rotten drinking water, lack of heating and shower, the need to spend the night in shifts and hear the screams of new prisoners from beatings.

Vorosheva, 46, said she was not told why she was detained, except for “smirks and jokes about Nazis” – a reference to Russia’s false claims that what it calls its “special military operation” was a campaign against ” denazification” of Ukraine. She also said that the staff told her, “Rejoice, we don’t beat you.”

The Donetsk authorities declared Gannich a prisoner of war and recently informed the family that she was being held in occupied Mariupol. It is not yet clear when she can be released at all.

The leading Ukrainian human rights organization, the Center for Civil Liberties, has inquiries regarding some 900 civilians captured by Russia since the start of the war, more than half of them still in custody.

Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights representative, put the figure even higher and said on Friday that his office had received inquiries regarding more than 20,000 “civilian hostages” held by Russia.

Russian lawyer Leonid Solovyov told AP that he had collected more than 100 inquiries concerning Ukrainian civilians. He said he was able to help 30-40 confirm that the person they were looking for was in Russian custody without any legal status – just like his client Nikita Shkryabin.

A student from the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine was detained by the Russian military in March and has been held without charge or trial ever since.

According to his mother Tatyana, 19-year-old Shkryabin was hiding from the fighting in the basement with his family. During the break, he went out for supplies – and did not return.

Tatyana Shkryabina told AP that she had learned from witnesses that Russian soldiers had seized him.

A few months later, Solovyov received confirmation from the Russian Ministry of Defense that Shkryabin had been detained for “resisting a special operation.” According to Solovyov, such an offense has not been officially registered in Russia, and even if it had, Shkryabin would have been formally charged and investigated, but this did not happen. The ministry declined to release his whereabouts.

Moreover, when Solovyov filed a complaint with the Investigative Committee of Russia challenging the detention, it was confirmed there that no criminal case had been initiated against Shkryabin, that he was neither a suspect nor an accused.

Solovyov said that Skryabin, who turned 20 in captivity, was not declared a prisoner of war, adding: “His legal status is just a hostage.”

The Russian Defense and Interior Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Other cases are eerily similar to the cases of Shkryabin and Gannych.

In May, Russian forces detained IT specialist Irina Gorobtsova in the southern city of Kherson when it was occupied by Moscow. They ransacked her apartment, seized a laptop, two mobile phones and several flash drives, and then took her away, according to her sister Elena Korniy. They promised her parents that she would be at home in the evening – but this did not happen.

According to Kornoy, Gorobtsova remained in the city and spoke out against the war on social media before she was detained. She participated in anti-Russian protests, and also helped residents by driving them to work or finding scarce medicines.

“She didn’t break any Ukrainian laws,” Korniy said, noting that her sister had nothing to do with the military.

Gorobtsova’s lawyer, Emil Kurbedinov, said that, in his opinion, the Russian security forces were conducting a “purge of the disloyal” in Kherson.

He learned from the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, that she was still in custody. In the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Crimea annexed by Moscow, he was informed that Gorobtsova was there in a pre-trial detention center. When Kurbedinov tried to visit her, officials refused to acknowledge the existence of such a prisoner.

As to why she was detained, Kurbedinov said authorities told him “she resisted the special operation and a decision on her would be made when the special operation was over.”

Kurbedinov called her “illegally deprived of liberty.”

Dmitry Orlov, the mayor of the occupied city of Energodar, Zaporozhye region, describes the fate of his deputy in the same way – “absolutely arbitrary detention.”

According to Orlov, Ivan Samoydyuk was taken away by Russian soldiers shortly after the seizure of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in March, and no charges have been brought against him.

We’re not even sure if he’s alive! the mayor said. “If we can’t get clarity from the Russians about the fate of the vice mayor, imagine the fate of ordinary Ukrainian civilians.”

Mikhail Savva of the Expert Council of the Center for Civil Liberties said that the Geneva Conventions allow the state to temporarily detain civilians in the occupied territories, but “as soon as the reason that caused the detention of this civilian disappears, then this person should be released. ”

“No special conditions, no exchange, only release,” Savva said, noting that civilians cannot be declared prisoners of war under international law.

International law prohibits a belligerent from forcibly transferring civilians to its territory or territory it occupies, and this could be qualified as a war crime, said Yulia Gorbunova, senior fellow at Human Rights Watch.

POWs can be exchanged, Gorbunova said, but there is no legal mechanism for exchanging civilians, complicating efforts to free civilians from captivity.

However, since the beginning of the war, Kyiv was able to return something home. Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the President of Ukraine, said on January 8 that 132 civilians were returned from Russian captivity in 2022.

Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, met his Russian counterpart Tatiana Moskalkova this month.

He said he gave Moskalkova lists of some of the 20,000 Ukrainian civilians he said were being held by Russia, and “the Russian side agreed to find out where they were, what condition they were in and why they were being held.”

According to Lubinets, after receiving such information, the question “about the procedure for their return” will be raised.

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