occupation
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
Four stories of missing persons in the occupied territories of Ukraine
For over a year and a half of full-scale Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainians have gone missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings, in artificially flooded areas, and Russian prisons. It is still not known precisely how many people have disappeared due to the war unleashed by Russia. According to the register of […]
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 […]
The health of political prisoner Zevri Abseitov has significantly deteriorated
Fatma Abseitova, Zevri’s wife, visited her husband with their children in Stavropol colony No. 1 in the village of Kochubeevskoye in the Russian Federation
A resident of Nova Kakhovka, abducted three times, was found in one of the Simferopol detention centers
Leonid Kondratsky, a resident of Nova Kakhovka, Kherson region, has been held in the Simferopol Detention Center No. 2 for over a year in the temporarily occupied Crimea. Following Russia’s full-scale military invasion and occupying parts of the Kherson region of Ukraine, the man was kidnapped three times. The last time, he was never released, […]
Gafarov-Shyring list: how Russia is killing political prisoners in Crimea
Tetyana Pechonchyk emphasized the importance of publicizing information about political prisoners. In her opinion, it is essential to tell the stories of illegally imprisoned Ukrainian citizens, spread them on social media and abroad, put pressure on Russia, initiate new resolutions of the European Parliament, and raise issues at the level of the OSCE and UN bodies so that Ukrainian citizens, political prisoners at risk with complex diseases, are released first and unconditionally
Mariupol policewoman Mariana Chechelyuk’s health has deteriorated significantly over the year of captivity
The health of Mariana Chechelyuk, a 22-year-old investigator from besieged Mariupol in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, whom the Russians took prisoner during the evacuation from Azovstal, has deteriorated significantly despite the guarantees of the United Nations and the Red Cross. For a year, the occupiers transported the woman from one prison to another, subjected […]
Political prisoner Server Mustafayev shares about poor conditions in Russian prison and lack of medical aid
Maye Mustafayeva and her and Server’s children, eight-year-old Yusuf and five-year-old Naji visited the political prisoner in Tambov prison. The family was allowed to come for an extended three-day visit from July 3 to 6
How to return Ukrainian journalism to the de-occupied territories?
The claim that the information component of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is almost as dangerous as its weaponry has been debated since 2014 when Russia occupied Crimea in the South and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the East. However, Russian forces began disseminating its propagandistic narratives among Ukrainians long before the open […]
A story of a man spent two months in captivity in the Russian pre-trial detention center with other civilians and volunteers
Yevhen Yamkovyi, a resident of Kahovka, a city in the Kherson region on the left bank of the Dnipro river occupied by Russian forces, was detained at the checkpoint “Armyansk” in the northern part of the Crimean peninsula on January 6, 2023. Then, he was transferred to the pre-trial detention center No. 2 in Simferopol, […]
A witness account of abduction and torture in Hornostaivka village, Kherson region
Serhii, a resident of the Kherson region, was kidnapped from his home on August 3, 2022. At that time, the Southern part of Ukraine, located on both banks of the Dnipro River, had been under the control of the Russian occupying forces for almost five months. At first, the man was kept at the commandant’s […]
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 […]
Volunteer Yaroslav Zhuk stated that he was tortured in the Rostov pre-trial detention center
Yaroslav Zhuk made a statement about torture with a shocker and brutal beating by officials of the Rostov-on-Don pre-trial detention center as soon as the court hearing in his case based on trumped-up charges began in early June of this year. Zhuk is a car mechanic and a resident of Melitopol, a city in the […]
Dmytro and Olena from Kupyansk imprisoned for sending SBU pictures of Russian equipment: Couple tells how they waited for town liberation in captivity
During the occupation of Kupyansk, 30-year-old local resident Dmytro Hrechanyi was taking photos and recording videos of the movement of Russian military equipment and sending them along with geolocation marks to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). In early August, Dmytro and his girlfriend Olena [name is changed] were summoned to the police station for questioning: they were asked whether they cooperated with the Ukrainian special services. During the interrogation, the occupiers made a backup copy of the man's phone and found previously deleted pictures of military equipment. Both of them were imprisoned and held separately.
‘Do you need a corpse?’: reportage from Izyum hospital where hundreds of civilians, including those tortured almost to death by Russians, were saved during occupation
From the beginning of the full-scale invasion and until the liberation of Izyum from the Russian occupiers, the Izyum Central Hospital did not stop working even for a day. During the month of the heaviest shelling and bombing, seven people, including a plumber, an electrician, nurses, a traumatologist and a surgeon, provided care to hundreds of injured and sick. ZMINA tells how surgeries were performed and babies were born in the basement of the dilapidated hospital, as well as how two civilians tortured almost to death by the Russians were saved here.
Road for survival. How Ukrainians from occupied South cross Vasylivka to break free
ZMINA talked to people, volunteers, and drivers who crossed the checkpoints in Vasylivka. In a few months, they turned into a separate world, subject to the changing mood of the occupiers – lawlessness reigns here, people have to spend nights by the road in tents and cars or neighboring villages, undergo humiliating inspections, and do not have access to healthcare. The physically and psychologically exhausting wait for departure has already claimed the lives of more than ten people.
‘I came for a cross to put on grave of murdered girl and was hit in teeth with buttstock’: reportage on Russian war crimes in Chernihiv region’s village
At the end of June, a ZMINA journalist visited Shestovytsia together with the Educational Human Rights House Chernihiv experts who document the Russian war crimes of the Russians within Ukraine 5 AM Coalition. The article tells about life in the village during the occupation.
At least six thousand people remain in “internats” on the occupied territories
Human rights defenders call upon Ministries and other responsible bodies to assess the situation with internats in the war-affected areas and organize the evacuation of those that can be evacuated as soon as possible.
Колонки
Life without basics: Struggle of Zakhar’s Family in war-torn Mariupol
From Bakhchysarai to Vermont: а Crimean Tatar teen’s journey of resilience
We should be more assertive in foreign policy amidst Russian propaganda
Ukraine must join NATO: eliminating security grey areas in Europe
