~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 Crimea (Qırım) confirms 218 illegally imprisoned Ukrainian citizens, 134 of whom are Qırımtatarlar.

During the full-scale war, 3,135 Ukrainian citizens were returned to Ukraine, including 150 civilians.

There were 22 prisoners, of whom only six were active military personnel and held non-combatant positions. The rest were civilians or had left military service before the full-scale invasion. 

ZMINA reports this with reference to its sources. 

During the convoy, prisoners are severely beaten, including one who had his head bashed in. Prisoners are transported in vans described as "gas chambers". On the way from the remand centre to the court, the van can brake suddenly, causing prisoners to fall and be injured. When prisoners get out of the vans, they are pushed, and if a person falls, they are 'dragged down the stairs by handcuffs'. The Russians film all this.

In pre-trial detention centre No. 1 in Rostov-on-Don in Russia, more than 20 prisoners are held in a cell designed for four people at a time. The prisoners take turns sleeping; it is stuffy in the cell, the prisoners are not allowed to go for walks, and there are mice and cockroaches in the cell.

Violence is also used against prisoners of war from the Aidar battalion, who are also being tried in Rostov-on-Don.

Russians have sentenced a resident of Henichesk district (in the Kherson region in the south of Ukraine, which has been partially occupied since 2022 — ed.) to three and a half years in a strict regime penal colony on suspicion of participation in the Crimean Tatar volunteer battalion Noman Çelebicihan. 

The Crimean Tatar Resource Centre reported this. 

The Noman Çelebicihan Volunteer Battalion was formed by participants in the Civil Blockade of Crimea campaign, who advocated the cessation of trade with Crimea and blocked checkpoints. 

On June 1, 2022, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognised the battalion as a terrorist organisation and banned its activities in Russia and the temporarily occupied territories.

Yashar Muedinov, an activist sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment, says that prison staff in the Ulyanovsk region of the Russian Federation used violence against him. His health has also deteriorated. 

His wife, Naila Ibragimova, informed Crimean Solidarity.

Yashar Muedinov added that the cell in which he was being held was very damp. As a result, his health deteriorated — his right arm started to hurt more.

"The pain was there before he arrived there [in prison]. But now, because the cell is damp, he says the pain is getting worse. He also wrote an application to a surgeon because he lumped his hand, but no one had come to see him for two months. He also complains about his teeth. He says he went to the dentist," said Naila Ibragimova.

Muedinov noted that the officers used physical violence after the transfer. He wrote a statement signed by ten other prisoners. The prison administration is conducting an investigation. He also said that the guards had put him under psychological pressure.

It will be recalled that Yashar Muedinov was detained in Crimea on March 27, 2019, in the Kamianka and Strohanivka neighbourhoods of Simferopol (Aqmescit), when dozens of homes of Crimean Tatars were simultaneously searched.

In Russia, the Court of Cassation in Krasnodar has upheld the sentence of Crimean Tatar Appaz Kurtamet, a resident of Novooleksiivka in the Kherson region, who was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment by a so-called 'court' in Crimea for allegedly 'financing' the 'Crimea' volunteer battalion.

The Crimean Human Rights Group reported this. 

On April 20, 2023, the 'Kyiv District Court of Simferopol' sentenced Appaz Kurtameta to 7 years imprisonment in a strict regime colony with the first year in prison for allegedly 'financing the "Crimea" battalion'. 

On August 29, 2023, the temporarily occupied Crimea's so-called 'Supreme Court' confirmed Kurtamet's sentence.