~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 209 illegally imprisoned Ukrainian citizens, 126 of whom are Qırımtatarlar.

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

In Staryi Krym (Eski Qırım, a small historical town on the temporarily occupied peninsula — ed.), Russians searched a mosque and homes of Crimean Tatars.

Crimean Solidarity reports.

After the searches, Izet Seifullin and Lenur Yakubov were taken to an unknown destination. The searches took place in the houses of activist Lenur Yakubov, Imam Izet Seifullin, the head of the Eski Qırım Muslim community Idris Yurdamov, Shevket Kyiamov, as well as in a mosque in the town of Staryi Krym.

Russians confiscated phones and several Russian-language books from the house of Crimean Tatar Saifullin. The imam's wife Reniie Eiupova was not informed where and why her husband was taken.

"The Russians jumped over the fence because we have a coded lock, but the door to the house was open. They burst in and said they were searching. They asked where my husband was. They conducted a cursory search," Lilia Yurdamova recalls the morning searches.

People gather near the building of the Russian Interior Ministry department in the temporarily occupied Kirovske, waiting for Lenur Yakubov and Izet Saifullin.

Later, Saifullin was released from the Russian police department. An administrative report was drawn up against him for 'illegal missionary activity'.

Russian security forces searched the home museum of the head of the Sudaq Regional Mejlis, Ilver Ametov.

Crimean Solidarity informs.

Ilver Ametov has collected antique weapons for more than twenty years. 

Police officers and plainclothes men arrived at the man's home museum with documents for an 'inspection'. The security forces searched for allegedly 'illegal items' for five hours.

"I have 'pineapples' [hand-held anti-personnel grenades] and ammunition here, but they are all empty. I emptied them all long ago," Ilver Ametov told Crimean Solidarity.

He is sure that the Russians are persecuting him because of his public activities and his status as the head of the regional Mejlis.

He has been searched before. Earlier, during searches in 2019, they seized antique guns and a Mejlis membership card from him. 

In August 2020, the so-called 'court' in the temporarily occupied Sudaq found Ametov guilty of illegal possession of weapons. He was sentenced to 8 months imprisonment. In February 2022, the court overturned the verdict and sent the case for a new trial.

The so-called "Supreme Court" of Crimea has not resumed the investigation into the abduction of Crimean activist Tymur Shaimardanov.

His defence lawyer Emil Kurbedinov says this in a comment to Suspilne.

The human rights activist filed a complaint with the court, as the case of activist Shaimardanov has not been investigated since 2019.

The investigators have not reconstructed the possible routes of Shaimardanov's journey from his apartment to the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank, have not extracted the footage from CCTV cameras, including the bank's cameras, nor have they taken into account the possible involvement of law enforcement agencies and the  Federal Security Service of Russia in the activist's disappearance.

However, the occupation 'court' found the suspension of the case justified.

It will be recalled that on May 26, Tymur Shaimardanov went missing in the temporarily occupied Simferopol (Aqmescit). A few days later, his friend, Seiran Zinedinov, who was actively involved in the search for the activist, also disappeared.

In May 2014, Shaimardanov and Zinedinov co-founded the Ukrainian House, which brought together activists supporting the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

A minimum of 36 illegally imprisoned by Russia in the temporarily occupied Crimea require immediate medical care.

Elvin Kadyrov, a representative of the Ombudsman for the Rights of the Residents of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Qırım) and Sevastopol (Aqyar), reports.

He says that about 208 Ukrainian citizens are imprisoned due to politically motivated and/or religious criminal prosecution by the Russian Federation and that 125 of them are representatives of the Crimean Tatar people.

"It is important that the international community condemns all illegal actions of the Russian Federation on the territory of the Crimean peninsula and that all cases of violations of human rights and freedoms are duly punished. Crimea is Ukraine!" Elvin Kadyrov summarised.

It will be recalled that in 2023, 173 detentions, 65 searches, 217 arrests, 186 interrogations, 300 violations of the right to a fair trial and over 50 violations of the right to health were recorded in Crimea.

A Russian court has sentenced Ukrainian prisoner of war Oleksii Bura to life imprisonment. 

The press service of the Russian Investigative Committee reports.

The Ukrainian is accused of allegedly 'killing' civilians in the temporarily occupied Mariupol, Donetsk region. 

According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Oleksii Bura went missing in May 2022 in Bakhmut, Donetsk region.

It will be recalled that the Geneva Conventions treat such 'trials' of prisoners of war as a crime.

Russians tortured and kept a Ukrainian prisoner of war in a punishment cell in the high-security colony No. 1 in the Tula region of the Russian Federation. After that, he probably died.

Former captured marine Bohdan Slobodian told this in a comment to the Media Initiative for Human Rights. 

Slobodian saw Russians brutally abuse the Ukrainian soldier during his stay in the Tula colony.

"They say that captivity kills. And it is true. From the first day we arrived at the Tula colony, I saw a healthy man being thrown into a punishment cell. It's a place for one person; it's very dark, and you just go crazy. If they throw a person in there, they break him until he agrees to cooperate with them," the Ukrainian soldier said.

The Russians did not let him sleep for several days and beat the 'missing' prisoner three to four times a day.

The security forces forced the Ukrainian defenders to sign confessions they wanted. 

After the brutal beatings, the prisoner was dragged out outside because he could no longer walk. 

Slobodian says that on the night of January 1, the colony administration called an ambulance to take him out of his cell.

"We haven't heard a sound from him since. His further fate is unknown, but even when I heard him moaning, I realised that he was not going to live," says Bohdan Slobodian.

Another prisoner, a 70-year-old civilian, was subjected to similar torture in this colony. The man was beaten and forced to squat several thousand times until he was exhausted. One day, he probably had a stroke and was taken away by an ambulance.

As of January 2024, the Media Initiative for Human Rights learned about at least 21 Ukrainian prisoners of war who died in Russian detention facilities. The data does not include the killed Azov soldiers in Olenivka.