Russian-Ukrainian war
126 Ukrainian women are in Russian captivity, most of them civilians
As of the end of June 2023, 126 women are still in Russian captivity. This news was reported by the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories and the National Information Bureau. “According to the National Information Bureau, as of the end of June 2023, 126 women are in Russian captivity. Of these, 46 […]
Russians handed under “preliminary custody” over a thousand children deported from Ukraine
According to the data collected by Vazhnye Istorii, at least three times more children may be transferred to Russian families than the official claims
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
Read a full witness testimony of Serhii, a Kherson region resident, about his abduction and torture experience. Due to safety concerns, ZMINA changed the name of the torture survivor
Occupation authorities in Ukrainian Crimea accused of using administrative resources to justify Russia’s war
The occupying authorities regularly receive plans to collect "voluntary" aid for the Russian military, which are often funded by Crimean entrepreneurs. Representatives of businesses fear to disapprove of the imposed support for the Russian army due to potential repercussions from occupying bodies
Torture as a policy of suppressing Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion – Report
The analytical report, prepared by ZMINA, provides a detailed account of documented policies, locations, profiles of main targets among civilians, and portraits of typical perpetrators of Russian occupying forces in Ukraine who brutally mistreated people from the Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson regions
A letter from unfreedom. Read a message from Bogdan Ziza, an artist and a Crimean political prisoner
The artist and Kremlin political prisoner Bogdan Ziza received 15 years of imprisonment by a Russian court for splashing a door of the municipality with blue and yellow paint in Yevpatoria, a city in the Western part of occupied Crimea. On June 10, he began a hunger strike. ZMINA received a letter from Bogdan Ziza […]
European human rights court will review a complaint on the illegal detention of a Crimean journalist Iryna Danylovych
For almost ten days, Danylovych’s family did not know about her whereabouts, and she did not have any access to a lawyer
Human rights crisis in occupied Crimea: wave of persecution targeted voices against Russia and its war in 2022
Crimean human rights defenders characterized the crackdown on dissent in the occupied Crimean Peninsula as part of a broader campaign by the Russian authorities to silence all opposition to their policies in the region
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 […]
Russian forces continue to violate the property rights of Ukrainians in temporarily occupied Crimea, flouting the Geneva Convention – Crimean human rights defenders
The confiscation of properties violates international law and highlights the ongoing aggressive policies of the Russian occupiers
It’s not a problem for Russians to place Grad MLRS behind column of civilians and fire at Ukrainian positions: Story of veteran who escaped from occupied Kherson region
When Russia’s full-scale offensive began, Ruslan Zaredinov, a Crimean Tatar and ATO veteran, lived with his family in the urban-type village of Novooleksiyivka, Henichesk district, Kherson region, 25km from Chonhar. They were unable to evacuate due to the almost lightning-fast occupation of Kherson region. For five months, the 35-year-old man and his family lived in fear that the Russians would come for Ruslan as it happened to his friends and familiar veterans.
Russia has unduly restricted the right to freedom of opinion and expression in temporarily occupied Crimea since full-scale war against Ukraine – OHCHR
OHCHR has documented the prosecution of 89 individuals in temporarily occupied Crimea for “public actions directed at discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation” since the legislation was introduced in March 2022
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 recognized his cross and teeth, waited for DNA analysis results for another month’: Iryna from Chernihiv spent several weeks searching for her husband, killed in Russian strike on evacuation bus
The man could not be found for a long time. His relatives believed in a miracle, but the DNA analysis of the body found later confirmed that Yevhen had been killed between the villages of Kolychivka and Lukashivka. The Russian military struck the bus he was traveling in with an anti-tank guided missile. Iryna, the wife of the murdered man, told ZMINA about the weeks spent hoping that her husband had survived, searching for him, and the circumstances of the Russian war crime.
‘Spring was very cold. Or so it seems to us’: Story of man from Mariupol who survived under rubble of bombed-out building but lost his daughter
Yevhen Kostomanov, 59, lived and worked in Mariupol all his life. In March, the man lost his daughter – she was killed as a Russian aerial bomb hit their house – but he managed to survive. Yevhen told ZMINA about the month spent in Mariupol and how he, his wife, and seven-year-old grandson fled the city literally on foot.
‘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.
‘Occupiers went on a rampage on March 27-28: they shot men of all ages indiscriminately’ A teacher from Bucha tells how she lost her husband and nephew
Viktoria Klimtsova, 47, and her elderly mother lived in Bucha until it was liberated from the occupiers. However, at the beginning of April, they left for Cherkasy region as Viktoria had no reason to stay any longer. On March 28, her husband Oleh, who had refused to evacuate not wanting to give an inch of his native land to the Russians, was shot by the Russian military. The woman told ZMINA how her family, together with other residents of a five-story building on Sklozavodska Street, survived the occupation, how they supported the elderly and abandoned animals, and how the Russians massively murdered civilians, including her husband, in the last days of the occupation.
Columns
More than 60 Crimean political prisoners are already in need of urgent medical care: How to solve this problem
Ukrainian parliament appeals for NATO membership as foundation for lasting peace
Ukraine rejects “pacifying the aggressor” as a path to peace
“Appeasement never works”: Lessons from Bosnia’s post-war justice
