Russia illegally detains at least 180 Kremlin prisoners

Russia illegally detains at least 180 Kremlin prisoners

According to the Mission of the President of Ukraine in ARC, this is the number of Ukrainian citizens illegally detained by Russians in the temporarily occupied Crimea or taken to the peninsula from the newly occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Forty are arrested, one hundred and twenty-five are imprisoned, and eighteen have no procedural status. About 60% of the illegally detained are Qırımtatarlar (Crimean Tatars).  

Russians also illegally detain Ukrainians in other temporarily occupied regions. However, there is less public information about their fates, as Russia denies the facts of these illegal arrests. 

In addition, Russians have taken several thousand prisoners convicted by Ukrainian courts from Kherson. They are now being illegally detained in other temporarily occupied territories and Russia.

On 2 March, the occupation court sentenced illegally detained Ukrainian citizen Ihor Khalilov to 5 years in prison

On 21 July 2022, Russians abducted him from the temporarily occupied village of Salkovo, Henichesk district. Since then, he has been held in the temporarily occupied Simferopol.

The occupation court stated that there were "mitigating circumstances" in the case against Khalilov. Russian security forces likely forced the man to testify against himself.

In the temporarily occupied Sudaq, Russians searched the house of Crimean Tatar Edem Murtazaev 

They abducted the Crimean Tatar from his home but later released him - Graty. 

The occupation forces continue to search for those involved in the damage to the railway near the village of Poshtove in the temporarily occupied Crimea. The Atesh resistance movement claims that they carried out this operation. 

Photo: Edem Murtazaev


On 28 February, Russian security forces illegally searched Abdullah Dzhemilov in connection with this case. However, the man has not been in the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea for several months. 

Murtazaev was abducted on the same grounds. The "permission" for the illegal search was signed by FSS officer Alexander Lavrov, who in the past fabricated a case against illegally detained Ukrainian citizens Yunus Masharipov and Irina Danylovych.

Murtazaev was at home when the explosion occurred on the railway, as evidenced by the surveillance footage. The occupation forces released the illegally detained man.

Kremlin prisoner Eskender Abdulganiev refused to receive Russian citizenship

Because of this, the Russians probably transferred him to the prison building, which is cold because of the renovations. 

Lawyer Alan Kachmazov told Crimean Solidarity about this.

The Russians refused to let the lawyer meet with the illegally detained Ukrainian citizen for about 10 hours, but eventually, they managed to communicate. 

Photo: Crimean Solidarity

The Russians have been holding Abdulganiev in a renovated building for two months. Abdulganiev suggested that this was because he refused to accept Russian citizenship. 

Abdulganiev has been in illegal detention for three years. He was kidnapped in the case of the so-called Red Guard Group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Russians have been holding Kremlin prisoner Server Zekiryayev in a punishment cell for a month

The illegally detained citizen of Ukraine is forced to go on a hunger strike because he professes Islam, and there is almost no halal food in the detention centre. 

Photo: Crimean Solidarity

The wife of the prisoner, Zarema Zekiryayeva, reported this. 

The server wrote to her that the Russians had sent him to the isolation ward for 15 days. Subsequently, this period was extended for another 15 days, although the man had not yet left the isolation ward. 

Zekiryayev professes Islam. In the detention centre, he is given pork dishes five times a week, which makes him starve.  

The Russians have been illegally detaining the Ukrainian citizen since 2017.

Occupation forces forced Kremlin prisoner Bohdan Ziza to defame himself

The Russians beat Ziza and forced him to record five videos with his "apologies" to use them as evidence in an illegal proceeding. 

Photo: Bohdan Ziza

He spoke about this in an interview with Krym.Realii project. 

On 16 May 2022, in the temporarily occupied Yevpatoriia [Crimean Tatar: Kezlev], Bohdan Ziza doused the so-called "administration" building with blue and yellow paint and threw a bottle of Molotov cocktail. 

As it turned out, this was not his first such action, but he had done previous ones less publicly. 

After that, the Russians kidnapped him and forced him to defame himself. Subsequently, they continued to put pressure on him in the detention centre of the temporarily occupied Simferopol. Finally, Ziza was transferred to a cell where detainees who cooperated with the occupation forces were kept. The Russians expected Ziza to be beaten, but not everyone supports a full-scale invasion.  

During Ziza's stay in the Simferopol detention centre, at least five people died there - one of them was beaten to death. 

At the end of December 2022, Ziza was illegally transferred to Rostov-on-Don.