Political prisoner Denys Petranov has appealed to the international community regarding the inhumane conditions of detention for Ukrainians in Russian prisons
Political prisoner Denys Petranov, who is illegally detained in Russia, has called on international humanitarian organizations to increase their efforts to provide assistance to Ukrainians held in Russian prisons.
Denys PetranovPetranov delivered the statement through his relatives, ZMINA reported.
He stressed that the food and water are of very poor quality; many prisoners lack underwear and bedding. Nearly all lack access to hygiene products and insect protection, and prisoners face a shortage of the most basic medications.
“The only hope for people in such unbearable conditions is humanitarian aid that the Red Cross and other organizations could provide,” Petranov said.
Petranov said that the Russian Commissioner for Human Rights, Tatiana Moskalkova, should also pay attention to the conditions of detention. Petranov believes that systematic attention to these issues can significantly influence the situation.
Russia detained Denys Petranov at the Nizhniy Lars Russian border checkpoint. Russian authorities charged him with smuggling explosives, and he is currently accused in a criminal case involving an entire group of Crimeans allegedly connected to terrorist acts commissioned by Ukrainian intelligence.
Petranov denies the charges, however, stating that he only helped Ukrainian refugees leave the occupied territory and travel to Europe.
ZMINA previously reported that among the political prisoners illegally detained in temporarily occupied Crimea, at least 40 individuals have cases grouped by the Crimean Human Rights Group based on charges of espionage, sabotage, and terrorism — cases the human rights defenders call the so-called “Ukrainian saboteur cases.”
The Russian occupiers convict widely diverse people in these cases, including journalists, activists, human rights defenders, and ordinary civilians. Iryna Siedova, a human rights advocate from the Crimean Human Rights Group, asserts that Russians fabricate these cases and make them public because they are part of an information war.
On August 26, 2025, a project Manager of the Human Rights Centre ZMINA, Viktoriia Nesterenko, stated at a briefing of the Crimean Platform Contact Network that the Russian authorities have been ignoring international law and human rights since the very beginning of the occupation. The human rights defender reported that there are currently more than 220 known political prisoners, and this number is constantly growing.
Viktoriia NesterenkoAccording to Nesterenko, political prisoners are often held without proper medical assistance, and the Russian prison system does not provide even minimal medical services:
“98 out of 220 people require medical assistance — these are people with disabilities, the elderly, those with chronic diseases, or those who fell ill during their imprisonment. Among them are five people with disabilities, such as Amet Suleimanov, who needs urgent heart surgery. We also see fatal cases: just this year, Rustem Virasti died, and in 2023, Dzhemil Hafarov and Kostiantyn Shyrinh”.
