Reign of terror: Russia detains and tortures thousands of Ukrainian civilians • FRANCE 24 English

Reign of terror: Russia detains and tortures thousands of Ukrainian civilians • FRANCE 24 English

[Music] Russian forces occupied Kazarovichi for just 4 weeks in 2022. A Ukrainian flag now flutters over the warehouse they used as a detention center. The first place they took Vasil Hilyuk and his son Mitro after detaining them here in their garden. They forced us down and searched us. Coats over our heads. No explanation, no questions. They separated us, me and my son. I was held for about 7 days. We met again when they took us to Dimmer, a nearby village. They told me I was to be released and him, who knows where they took him off to. Since then, the Heluks have received just one short letter from their only child. It says, “My dear mom and dad, I’m alive and healthy. All is well with me.” And that’s it. It’s signed Dimma. Dimmitro was not reporting at the time of his capture, but he made no secret of his profession. When they were transporting us, I said, “Dema, what did you tell them?” He says, “I told them I work for the Yunan news agency, so that makes him a journalist.” Dimmitro’s colleague Tanya regularly visits his parents. Tanya always checks just in case they missed any messages about Mitro. We have yet to receive any official information from Russia to confirm he is being held, let alone where or why. That guy told us he’s in Vladimir region in Russia. He said he shared a cell with him for 11 months. And another released prisoner of war, Elar, said that Dimma weighs only 45 kg. That was so painful for me to hear. Ehore had spared Dimmitro’s parents the worst news. He spoke to us from Hark. A drunken guard set his dog on him and bit him badly on the elbow, which then got infected and he got seriously ill because they provide no medical care. Also, his teeth were in terrible pain. Some got knocked out, the others just fell out for lack of nutrition because there’s so little food there. Today, a portrait of Mitroyuk hangs outside the news agency where he worked in central Kiev. Inside the nearby offices of this media NGO, his picture is just one of many. More than 30 Ukrainian journalists are in Russian captivity. But it’s not only journalists. Thousands of Ukrainian civilian men and women are currently being held. Lud Miller Hussein has been a campaigner for civilian prisoners freedom ever since she herself was released from a donet jail in October 2022. This still has the smell of the prison. My cellmate did this for me in exchange for cigarettes. The stench, filth, and sheer cruelty of life in Russian captivity motivate Ludm Miller to fight for those who are still there. That was my view from the prison cell window for 3 years. Today, whenever I close my eyes, I see those girls in those dirty, stinking sheets with all those lice and their tears. When they took me for questioning, the investigator made a show of covering his nose like that and laughed that I stank and told the guards to beat me only with sticks, not with their hands, saying she’s crawling with lice and you don’t want to catch them. It was sickening. [Music] There was an investigator, but no serious investigation. It was only after two years that they finally presented me with these charges. Two and a half years actually. Three counts of extremism and one of espionage. No evidence is even mentioned. All they write about is that I had pro- Ukrainian views. There was no trial. Lud Miller was released but not acquitted. She has since learned from her research into the fates of other civilian prisoners that most of them never see a courtroom and the detentions continue. I personally know of at least 10 such cases just since the start of this year in occupied Detsk region alone. At least 80% of prisoners both women and men suffer conflict related sexual violence and torture. Until recently, the Ukrainian authorities thought too much attention on civilians held by Russia might do them more harm than good as they tried to discreetly negotiate their release. Lately, they’ve changed tactics and have been encouraging rallies like this one. I will never stop believing. I will never stop waiting. Relatives held up cards saying how long their loved ones had been in captivity. All these detentions, these tortures are aimed at breaking our nation. So want to thank you for being so strong, for your strength and for your belief that they will return. We will bring them back. Thank you. Yet he knows Ukraine cannot fulfill these people’s dearest wish to see their loved ones included in prisoner of war exchanges. If we started large-scale swaps of civilians for soldiers, the rate of civilian detentions in the occupied territories would skyrocket. During operations in the Kursk region, Ukraine did not detain Russian civilians so as to exchange them for our own because we adhereed to the Geneva Conventions and respected those people’s rights. Polode collects letters for the prisoners unsure how many will ever be delivered.

Since 2014, the regimes installed by Russia and its local collaborators in occupied regions of Ukraine have been arbitrarily detaining civilians on a massive scale. The Ukrainian government puts the number of those currently in detention at over 16,000. Journalists, activists, local politicians: just about anyone the occupation authorities take a dislike to is in danger of being taken prisoner. Some are held for a few days, others for years. FRANCE 24’s Gulliver Cragg investigates, with a consortium of media under the “Forbidden Stories” umbrella.
#Ukraine #Forbidden Stories #arbitrarydetention

Read more about this story in our article: https://f24.my/B8P7.y

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