Ukraine submits new ICC evidence on deportation of more than 1,800 prisoners to Russia
A new package of evidence concerning the deportation and unlawful detention in Russia of more than 1,800 Ukrainian prisoners from the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions has been submitted to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko stated on 21 May, 2026.
In November 2022, Russian forces forcibly transferred these prisoners through temporarily occupied Crimea to penal colonies in Russia. Prosecutors said this was a pre-planned operation, from the seizure of Ukrainian prisons to the detention of prisoners in the aggressor state.
In these penal colonies, Ukrainian prisoners are beaten, tortured, subjected to psychological pressure, threatened with execution, and forced to build Russian military fortifications. Russian citizenship is forcibly imposed on them, while some are unlawfully detained after completing their sentences or rearrested.
These acts constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity under international humanitarian law, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General concluded.
The materials submitted to the ICC are based on testimonies from more than 400 victims and witnesses, as well as an analysis of Russian court rulings, official documents, responses from Russian state bodies, and other evidence.
The NGO Protection of Prisoners of Ukraine, the European Prison Litigation Network, and the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group participated in preparing the evidence package.
ZMINA previously reported that, as of 7 May, the Prosecutor General’s Office had recorded 256,000 crimes linked to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. More than 225,000 of them were classified as war crimes.
At the national level, 1,191 people have already been served with notices of suspicion, 856 people have had indictments sent to court, and 254 people have been convicted.
