Diana Kolodiazhna
How Ukraine passes judgment on violations of the laws and customs of war?
Over the past two years, Ukrainian judges have convicted at least 101 people for violating the laws and customs of war. Among them are Russian officials, soldiers, and officers of the Russian army who robbed civilians in Ukraine, shelled residential buildings, abducted, tortured, and killed residents of the occupied territories, as well as Ukrainian citizens […]
“Mariupol is a pattern of Russian warfare” – how Russia destroyed the city
ZMINA recounts the main points from the study “Our City Was Gone.” Russia’s Devastation of Mariupol, Ukraine"
Ukraine: Ten victories in human rights in 2023
ZMINA has compiled the most significant developments and events in the field of human rights that took place in 2023 in Ukraine
How the Ukrainian justice system deals with international crimes
As of December 2023, the Office of the Prosecutor General had already registered more than 120,000 international crimes committed during Russia’s full-scale invasion alone. Such violations are recorded by government agencies and Ukrainian non-governmental organizations, international observers, investigators, and human rights defenders. All of them emphasize that the crimes known today are only the tip […]
Three stories of women taken by Russians as civilian hostages from Kherson
Olha and Svitlana told ZMINA about how Russian occupying forces took prisoners, hastily prepared new cells for them, and held civilian hostages on the occupied left bank of the Kherson region
A story of an elderly man from Balakliya on a 12-day hunger strike in Russian captivity
Russian occupying forces took 73-year-old Viktor Illinsky from his home in Balakliya, Kharkiv region, in early August 2022. They wrapped a jacket around his head, put him in a military jeep, and drove him to the local police station. He was held with other civilian hostages, including another man in his 70s, in a cramped […]
‘Women are not beaten here in Ukraine, but our hands are free’: How Russians held women in seized TDC in Kherson
At different times, at least 30 local women were held at a temporary detention center (TDC) in Kherson, including a policewoman, a housewife, a cadet of a military educational institution, and a head teacher of a gymnasium. This is described in the analytical report "‘Women's cells’ of Kherson torture chamber" which was prepared by Human Rights Centre ZMINA specialists based on testimonies of victims.
Torture as a policy of suppressing Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion – Report
ZMINA Human Rights Center collected evidence of how Ukrainians were kidnapped, interrogated, and tortured en masse by Russian occupying forces during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to human rights defenders, the Russian military treats the entire population of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine as a threat. Torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading […]
