~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 67 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, 132 of whom are Qırımtatarlar.

During the full-scale war, 3,767 Ukrainian citizens, including 167 civilians, were returned to Ukraine.

The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don has sentenced Oleksandr Maksymchuk, a sergeant in the Azov Brigade accused of 'terrorism', to 20 years in a maximum security colony. This was reported by Zmina.

The sergeant was captured in May 2022 as he left the Azovstal plant in Mariupol and was sent to a filtration camp for Ukrainian POWs at the Volnovakha penal colony in Olenivka. Oleksandr survived the night of July 29, 2022, when an explosion in Barracks 200, organised by the Russians, killed more than 50 Ukrainian prisoners. In the autumn of 2022, Maksymchuk was transferred to the Taganrog detention centre No. 2. 

During the trial, the Azov sergeant pleaded not guilty and repeatedly stated in public that he had been subjected to torture and violence. Maksymchuk was tortured with electric shocks, beaten with water pipes, punched and kicked, and hung upside down so that he repeatedly lost consciousness. He was told to admit his guilt, to repent and to refuse an independent lawyer. During the hearings, Maksymchuk showed obvious signs of severe beatings, including on his face. On October 17, he asked the presiding judge, Pavel Gubarev, to summon doctors to the prison.

"Your Honour, I ask you to call an ambulance if possible - I have a headache, nausea, it looks like a concussion; I have bruises on my forehead, under my eye and on my left arm; I want to be examined by a doctor," Maksymchuk said via video link. 

Despite Maksymchuk's poor physical condition, the judge refused. On December 2, journalists entered the courtroom, and the judge closed the hearing, citing an alleged threat to the participants in the trial. 

On December 5, Maksymchuk was found guilty of two charges: preparation for terrorist activities and participation in a terrorist organisation. The sergeant was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment in a maximum security colony. After the verdict was announced, Oleksandr said he disagreed with it and would appeal.

Maksymchuk is survived by his son, born in 2019, and his wife Natalia, who is a member of the community of families of those killed in the Olenivka attack, demanding the return of their loved ones.

"I don't want my husband to become a posthumous hero. I don't need that. I want my husband to come back to me with my child. I'm very proud of him, but I want him to come home… to be exchanged in the next exchange. Because his bravery deserves that he should be one of the first to go home," Nataliia told Graty.

The youngest Crimean political prisoner, Appaz Kurtamet, who was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment by an illegal Russian court for allegedly 'financing the Armed Forces of Ukraine', has been transferred to the Pskov region of the Russian Federation. This was reported by the convict's mother, Ayşe Kurtamet, on her social media pages.

His mother, Ayşe, urges everyone not to forget her son and to write to him, as it encourages him, distracts him from hopelessness and fills the limited communication within the prison walls. 

Before the full-scale invasion, 22-year-old Appaz Kurtamet worked for an IT company and was also a Crimean Tatar language teacher at the Crimean Tatar Cultural Centre in Odesa.

The occupiers illegally detained Appaz in July 2022 in the village of Novooleksiivka, Kherson region. Since then, communication with the boy has been cut off. For several months, his family did not know where he was until Appaz called his mother from the pre-trial detention centre in temporarily occupied Simferopol (Aqmescit). 

In April 2023, the occupation court in Simferopol (Aqmescit) sentenced the young man to seven years in prison for 'financing terrorism'. The occupiers claim that Kurtamet was involved in financing a Ukrainian volunteer battalion. 

Appaz's father, 58-year-old Khalil Kurtamet, was also sentenced to eight years in prison by the illegally established 'Henichesk District Court' for alleged involvement in the 'Crimean Tatar Volunteer Battalion named after Noman Çelebicihan'.

Crimean political prisoner Teimur Abdullaiev, sentenced to 16.5 years in prison in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case, has been put in disciplinary isolation for 15 days. He wrote about this in a letter to his wife, Alima Abdullaieva, according to Crimean Solidarity.

According to the political prisoner, he was sent to the detention centre on December 12.

"So far, they have given me 15 days, but most likely it will be more because they have already written some more material," the political prisoner wrote, without specifying what kind of material he was talking about.

Teimur Abdullaiev has spent at least 874 days in prison, not counting the time he has spent in a cell under strict detention conditions. At the beginning of December this year, he was also placed in this cell.

Currently, Abdullaiev suffers from high blood pressure and headaches, his eyesight is deteriorating, and his hearing has disappeared due to otitis media. He also regularly suffers from pain in his stomach, liver and teeth.

Crimean Imam Raif Fevziev, sentenced to 17 years in prison in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case, has been transferred from Novocherkassk prison. 

Fevziev was transferred from Novocherkassk Detention Centre No. 3, Rostov Region. His wife, Liana Fevzieva, does not know to which prison he will be transferred. He announced the transfer in a letter to his relatives, which was passed on by Crimean Solidarity.

"He no longer receives our letters in return. It is very likely that he has already been transferred," said the political prisoner's wife.

In the temporarily occupied Donetsk, the so-called 'DPR court' has sentenced a Ukrainian defender of Mariupol, 25-year-old Oleh Abdiukov, to 24 years in prison. This was reported by Zmina.

The occupation 'court' accused the man from Azov of allegedly 'firing a grenade launcher at a car containing two civilians in March 2022'.