Expert from the Ukrainian human rights organization "Center for Civil Liberties" Mikhail Savva, who documents facts of Russia's war crimes against Ukrainian citizens, said in an interview with "First Department"*, that there are currently 182 places of forced detention for Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians in Russia, who are classified as "detained for resisting the special military operation". In October 2022, there were 26 such places. "They are everywhere, in almost every federal subject, and this is because Ukrainians are held in the same facilities where there are also Russian prisoners. Not in all cases, but in most. But for them, there is a mandatory condition — strict isolation from Russians. To find such conditions, they are taken as far as the Far East," said Savva. For Ukrainian prisoners, a cell regime is mandatory, although this contradicts the Geneva Conventions: both the third — on prisoners of war, and the fourth — on civilians.
The conditions of detention are very harsh everywhere, but even in this case, SIZO-2 Taganrog, the Kamyshin detention center in the Volgograd region, and the Novozybkov detention center in the Bryansk region stand out, where people are tortured.
The expert said that in SIZO-2 Taganrog, people are tortured with hunger: they are fed only twice a day with very low-calorie food. This detention center is also characterized by the beating of people. "We know that women there were grabbed by the hair and had their heads slammed against the walls," said Savva. Lawyers in this detention center can communicate with their clients only via video link. And when a person starts telling the lawyer about the torture, this video connection is interrupted.
Another problem is the complete lack of walks. People are not even given the hour a day required by the penal code. They live in closed and overcrowded cells. Prisoners are generally prohibited from being held in prison conditions. The Third Geneva Convention clearly states that there should be camps for prisoners of war. A camp differs in that there a person has the opportunity to at least be in open space and breathe oxygen.
All this falls under Article Seven of the Rome Statute — "Crimes against humanity," the expert believes.
SIZO Taganrog is used as a place where testimonies are extracted from people under torture, human rights activists claim.
As Mikhail Savva reported, currently, 543 people are involved in criminal cases, of which 307 are civilians. At the same time, many cases are unknown to human rights activists. The charges are "terrorism," "espionage," and "treason." If a Ukrainian in the occupied territory accepted Russian citizenship, they are charged with "treason," if not, then with "espionage." "The occupation authorities are searching for former fighters of "Azov"** and "Aidar"**. Former ones. And they initiate criminal cases against them under Article 205 (terrorism). And yes, they are in detention centers. In other words — a person resigned in 2021, at the time of the full-scale invasion, he was completely civilian, but they find some information about where he served, they take him under Article 205, and he is, of course, in a detention center," said Savva.
* Recognized in Russia as a "foreign agent".
** Recognized in Russia as "terrorist" organizations.
Photo: Kommersant