~Russia illegally detains 25,000 Kremlin prisoners

According to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, this is the number of civilians abducted by the Russian Federation.

The ZMINA Human Rights Centre has found that at least 21 prisoners require urgent medical care and may die unless they receive it. 

During the full-scale invasion, the National Police began investigating the enforced disappearance of 8,800 people. Russian Children's Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova claims Russia has illegally abducted over 700,000 children from Ukraine.

The Media Initiative for Human Rights has identified about one hundred places where abducted civilians are held.

The Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Qırım confirms 186 illegally imprisoned Ukrainian citizens, 60% of whom are Qırımtatarlar.

During the full-scale war, 2,576 Ukrainian citizens were returned to Ukraine, including 144 civilians.

Russian FSS officers detained Crimean Tatar Lutfiie Veliieva in the temporarily occupied Crimea (Qirim) and released her a few hours after interrogation.

This was reported by lawyer Edem Semedliaiev, Crimean Solidarity reports.

The girl's family lives in the Simferopol (Aqmescit) district. On the morning of October 12, they were woken up by Russian riot police officers with machine guns. They were looking for Lutfiie's phone.

The house had been searched before by the officers of the so-called 'Centre for Counter-Terrorism' did it. 

According to Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Ombudsman, the Russians believed that the 20-year-old Crimean Tatar could discredit the Russian military through the social network Vkontakte.

"In this way, the occupiers are trying to intimidate and suppress the resistance of the indigenous people of the temporarily occupied peninsula," Lubinets said.

Russian security forces have taken Spaniard Mariano García Calatayud from the temporarily occupied Crimea (Qirim).

Calatayud's wife, Tetiana, told the Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets about it.

The Russians abducted him on March 19, 2022, in Kherson and kept him in a pre-trial detention centre in Simferopol (Aqmescit). 

According to his wife, the Russians repeatedly tortured the 75-year-old Spaniard, despite his age and citizenship.

"Probably, Mariano García Calatayud was moved to the temporarily occupied village of Chongar in the Kherson region, where the invaders recently opened an unofficial detention centre," Lubinets said in a statement.

It will be recalled that Mariano Calatayud has been living in Ukraine since 2014. He lived In Kherson and helped veterans of the Russian-Ukrainian war. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the man refused to leave the city. 

On March 19, 2022, after another protest in which the volunteer participated, Russians abducted Calatayud and took him to the temporarily occupied Simferopol (Aqmescit). 

The man was held without charge for a year and a half. In response to requests from human rights activist Oleksandr Danylov, the Russians claimed that they had no information about the Spanish volunteer.

In April 2023, the Russian Federation confirmed they were holding Calatayud. The Russian authorities did not provide any details or reasons for the detention, citing it as a 'state secret'.

According to the volunteer's wife, Tetiana, Mariano Calatayud is accused of "involvement in actions aimed at harming the security of the Russian Federation".

On October 13, Russian law enforcement officers detained lawyer Oleksii Ladin in the temporarily occupied Simferopol (Aqmescit). He was charged with allegedly 'propagating Nazi symbols' and 'discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation'.

This was reported by lawyers Emil Kurbedinov and Edem Semedliaiev, Crimean Solidarity reports.

According to the Crimean Process, the Russians attributed the image of the tamga (the ancestral sign of the Giray dynasty that ruled Crimea (Qirim), depicted on the Crimean Tatar flag – ed.) on Ladin's page in 2018 to the dissemination of banned symbols.

Lawyers Kurbedinov and Semedliaiev also said that the employees of the Russian so-called "Centre for Countering Extremism" did not receive permission to conduct operational and search activities against lawyer Ladin.

"They have removed him from several important criminal cases, in one of which he is supposed to take part in the debates, in others — to provide evidence," — Kurbedinov commented.

During the detention, the security forces also conducted searches, removing materials containing attorney-client privilege.

In addition to the 14–day arrest, the court fined Ladin 45 thousand rubles (approximately 17 thousand UAH — ed.). The lawyer is currently being held in the “Zheleznodorozhny” police station No. 1 in Simferopol (Aqmescit).

On October 17, a Russian court rejected an appeal against the decision to arrest Ladin.

Oleksii Ladin is the lawyer of many political prisoners of the Kremlin, including Kyrylo Barannyk, Yaroslav Zhuk and Pavlo Zaporozhets. The human rights activist is convinced that Russia is persecuting him because of his professional activities.

A Russian court has convicted Leonid Onupko, Vladyslav Ovcharenko, Roman Makusei, Vadym Semchuk, Denys Mirza and Andrii Skorin on charges of allegedly killing civilians in Mariupol. 

This was reported by the press service of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.

Onupko, Mirza and Skorin were sentenced to life imprisonment, while Ovcharenko, Makusei and Semchuk were sentenced to 27, 28 and 28 years respectively.

According to the Russians, all the soldiers served in the 36th Separate Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This information is partially confirmed in Facebook groups for the search for prisoners. 

The 36th Separate Brigade took part in the defence of Mariupol starting in February 2022. According to the register of missing persons from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the military personnel convicted in the Russian Federation disappeared in March 2022 in Mariupol.

It will be recalled that the so-called Russian 'courts' previously convicted Ukrainian servicemen Maksym Subotin, Vitalii Antonov, Oleksii Lozovik and Artem Pukhalskyi.

Russians have transferred Bilial Adilov, illegally sentenced to 14 years, to strict conditions of detention in a prison in Krasnoyarsk Krai.

This was reported by the prisoner's lawyer Mariia Terekhova, Crimean Solidarity reports.

As a result, the number of parcels, calls and visits allowed to him was reduced.

"Long-term visits [were] reduced to once a year and short-term visits to twice a year, and the number of parcels was also reduced. Calls home are now allowed once every six months. But he cannot use even this opportunity because of the long queue," the statement reads.

It will be recalled that on March 27, 2019, Russian security forces searched the homes of Crimean Tatar activists. Then, 23 people were detained, including Bilial Adilov. He was a member of the so-called 'Second Simferopol Group'.

On May 12, 2022, the Russian Southern District Military Court sentenced Adilov to 14 years in a strict regime colony. He was accused of alleged involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir. The Russian Federation has recognised the organisation as a 'terrorist' one. The legislation of Ukraine and other countries does not prohibit this political organisation.