Russia is holding thousands of civilians hostage in the occupied territories of Ukraine, creating an atmosphere of terror and violence.
Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said that about 28 000 Ukrainian civilians are being held in Russian captivity, approximately 2,000 of whom are over 65 years old. It is important to understand that the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War says nothing about the possibility of taking civilians prisoner. Russia is grossly violating international law by detaining civilians in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
The figure of 28 000 is provisional: the terrorist state does not provide any information on the situation in the territories of Ukraine under Russian occupation. Some information is provided by Ukrainians who were lucky enough to escape from the occupied territories and who tell us about the horrors of Russian occupation. Putin is deliberately recreating the grim reality of Stalin’s time to intimidate and demoralise Ukrainians who are now forced to live under the Russian yoke.
The Kremlin uses a wide range of repressive measures, including imprisonment and torture. The occupiers do not pay attention to the age of such people – there are many cases when Ukrainians over 80 years old have been captured. In addition, since the invasion, the Russians have forcibly removed at least 19,500 children from Ukraine, most of whom were taken away from their parents and dispersed in different regions of the Russian Federation. This process is ongoing and is a factor in Putin’s artificial depopulation of Ukraine.
After the first days of its invasion of Ukraine, Russia began to create an atmosphere of fear and terror in the temporarily occupied territories. This is, in general, typical for Russia, as its occupation regime has always been the most brutal, if we take past history into account. Civilian prisoners are one of the main instruments of pressure on Ukrainians under occupation. Their fate is aggravated by the complete lack of rights and freedoms against the backdrop of the total arbitrariness of the Russians: even one pro-Ukrainian statement or Ukrainian symbol is enough to be imprisoned in a detention centre.
After detention, Ukrainian civilians are subjected to psychological and physical abuse and humiliating filtration measures. As a rule, the Russians do not provide any explanations or reasons for the detention of Ukrainians, limiting themselves to the formal argument that “they were detained for opposing the Russian army”. Most of these civilian prisoners are held in pre-trial detention centres on the territory of the so-called LDPR, where the conditions of detention are the worst; some Ukrainians were taken to the territory of the Rostov region of the Russian Federation. In total, human rights activists from Ukraine and the Russian Federation have identified about 30 colonies and pre-trial detention centres where civilians are held, but the Kremlin does not provide any information on this issue.
Russia does not allow access to civilian prisoners for representatives of the UN and the Red Cross. The situation is also complicated because there is no clear legal mechanism for the return of civilian prisoners from captivity. In addition, Russia sabotages any exchanges in every way possible and does not enter into any negotiations. Meanwhile, the abduction of civilians continue. Given Russia’s characteristic complete disrespect for the law, Ukrainians simply disappear and their relatives and friends usually receive no news of their fate.
This arbitrary behaviour of the terrorist state constitutes a crime against Ukrainian civilians and a violation of the norms and principles of international law. Russia should be subject to additional sanctions and complete international isolation – such actions would be a logical response to its legalised terror in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
