How Russia hides kidnapped Ukrainians and why it is difficult to return them? Interview with head of Media Initiative for Human Rights

hromadske: Since the start of the full-scale invasion, MIHR has systematically documented cases of Russian abductions of Ukrainian civilians. How many such people have you identified so far, and how many have been returned?

Tetyana Katrychenko: According to our calculations, the figure exceeds 4,000 people. Of those, roughly 2,428 civilians remain in illegal detention. Some were released through official exchanges, while more than a thousand returned through other channels.

There is no exact number because there is no comprehensive registry of all civilians who have been detained — from a few hours to several years, dating back to 2014. So we can only speak in approximate terms, but it is clearly in the thousands.

This is a major problem that the state has not truly tried to solve systematically — or has tried only in a situational, ad hoc manner.

You mentioned people detained since 2014. How many of them does Russia still hold?

I believe we are now talking about several dozen people who were detained before 2022 in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. In August 2025, 51 citizens were returned — all but one of them had been detained before 2022.

Some are still held in temporarily occupied territories — in Donetsk and Luhansk. Others have been moved to Russia, where they face trial or are already “serving sentences.” We write “serving sentences” because these are illegal detentions, but for the people involved, the punishment is very real.

Separately, about 150 citizens were detained in Crimea before 2022. There have been no mass releases for them, and most remain in detention.

Since 2023, the Media Initiative has maintained and updated an interactive map of sites where Russia holds Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war. How many such locations have been recorded so far, and have you seen new detention sites emerge over the years?

At the beginning, we mapped the first 40 detention sites — mostly in occupied territory. Now the map shows 239 sites in the occupied areas and in Russia itself. We update it constantly.

Initially, there were more sites in the occupied territories, and they still exist. But Russia has significantly expanded the geography of detention onto its own territory. This is linked to the growing number of so-called court proceedings in Russia: after “sentences” are handed down, people are dispersed to various facilities to “serve their punishment.” We receive information from released civilians and service members, monitor open sources, and add those locations to the map.

There are large-scale detention centers — for example, Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 2 in Taganrog, Rostov Oblast, or the strict-regime penal colony No. 1 in Tula Oblast, where hundreds of Ukrainians are held without any contact with the outside world. But after “sentencing,” people are often scattered across different colonies, where there may be only one or two Ukrainians, which constantly expands the geography.

Who has access to these people? And in facilities in the temporarily occupied territories, can relatives of Ukrainians who stayed behind visit the detainees or bring them anything?

If we are talking about the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, they are supposed to be held in separate camps under conditions no worse than those for Russia’s own armed forces — barracks with beds, no bars on the windows, adequate food, and so on.

If Russia followed the Geneva Conventions, humanitarian missions — at a minimum, the International Committee of the Red Cross — would have access to prisoners of war. But Russia does not follow these rules. So it’s not just relatives; even ICRC representatives cannot get into the places where Ukrainians are held.

When it comes to civilians, Russia has no right to detain, hold, or transport them at all, under the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Civilians are supposed to remain in their homes in occupied territory if they choose to stay.

Yet Russia detains civilians and holds them in the same places as prisoners of war. And since it has already violated these rules, it logically allows no one access. These people are “invisible” to the system. Access is granted only in exceptional cases, during specific negotiations and agreements.

Russia baselessly accuses, for example, a person who made a donation to the Ukrainian Armed Forces while living in the occupied territory of terrorism. Yes, it is their country and their armed forces, and they do not accept the occupation. For Russia, that is a crime.Tetyana Katrychenko, Head of the Media Initiative for Human Rights

We also know of many cases of torture. So the conditions of detention are very different from what is prescribed. Accordingly, Russia does not want to show any of this. In general, Russia grants no access; access is granted only exceptionally and very rarely.

More than two years ago, in an earlier interview, you noted that the Coordination Headquarters lacked authority to handle the return of civilians from Russian captivity. Have its powers in this area changed since then, or has the state’s overall approach to such returns shifted?

Overall, yes, it has changed. The Coordination Headquarters, established under the Main Intelligence Directorate, continues to focus primarily on prisoners of war. But in March 2024, a resolution was adopted giving it responsibility for the return of civilian citizens as well.

We see that the number of civilians returned as part of negotiations on prisoner-of-war exchanges is growing. Last year, there were several exchanges in which civilians returned alongside service members. These are various categories: people detained before 2022, citizens detained inside Russia who were serving sentences there, or people held in occupied territories for their views.

Nevertheless, the return of civilians remains an area without a single lead agency. From the outside, we see that the state still has no tactical steps — let alone a strategy — for returning civilians. It is still more the exception than the rule.Tetyana Katrychenko, Head of the Media Initiative for Human Rights

Journalist UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khiluk was abducted by the occupying forces in the village of Kozarovychi, Kyiv Oblast, in March 2022. He was returned as a civilian hostage as part of a prisoner exchange in August 2025.Dmytro Khiluk was returned because the journalistic community demanded it and refused to let people forget about him. That created public pressure. Although, of course, I could be wrong, because we cannot know what happens inside the negotiation process.

Where is the line for society — and especially for relatives — between making sure a person is not forgotten and saying too much about what the person in captivity might want to keep private?

This is a difficult question. On one hand, when a person has been in captivity for four years, it becomes hard to tell the family they should stay silent. I think that is wrong. On the contrary, families need more effective support in getting information out — to the media, including foreign outlets, and to international organizations — about both prisoners of war and detained civilians.

Does publicity affect returns? In the case of Russia, everything affects them. There are examples where silence did not help, where active publicity did not help, and where both approaches ultimately led to release.Tetyana Katrychenko, Head of the Media Initiative for Human Rights

From the surveys we have, both prisoners of war and civilians have said that the Russian side knew a great deal about them: relatives, places of residence, jobs, friends and so on. Some information was beaten out under torture. Some databases — for example, from military enlistment offices about veterans of the Anti-Terrorist Operation — had been leaked.

Of course, public communications must filter information to avoid causing harm. But not talking about captivity, it seems to me, carries a greater risk because a person can simply be lost. Our verified list of civilians is quite fragile. We have the Coordination Headquarters keeping its records, the Security Service and the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights keeping theirs. But there is no single unified registry overall. So a person can simply disappear from one of those lists, and during negotiations on an “all for all” exchange, their name may not be taken into account.

In early March, Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets reported that Russians had abducted 19 residents of Sopych in Sumy Oblast and deported them to Russia. Before that, in December, they detained and removed about 50 residents of Hrabovske village in Sumy Oblast. Do you have more information on these specific cases? And what do such incidents indicate in general?

There is not much known about Sumy Oblast, but the logic here is different. In occupied territories such as Melitopol or Donetsk, civilians are detained on suspicion of disloyalty to the occupation authorities — they go through basements, pre-trial detention centers and the entire detention system.

In the case of border villages in Sumy Oblast, it is more about something else: these are people who remained in the combat zone and whom the Russian side moved deeper into its territory, formally “for security reasons.” So these are not classic detained civilians but illegally transferred persons.

Since Ukraine began its operation in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, it has also been moving Russian citizens to its own territory, in Sumy Oblast, to guarantee their safety.

Therefore, from an international law perspective, the legality or illegality of moving Ukrainians must be examined on a case-by-case basis.

Recently, media reported on a case in which a civilian released from a Belarusian colony did not manage to obtain the status of a victim of political persecution by the aggressor state — and was immediately conscripted. Does this highlight gaps in the system for granting this status to civilians, and how can it be avoided?

Neither civilians nor service members automatically receive any special status. When a service member is captured, they receive protection under the Geneva Conventions as a prisoner of war. Civilians are simply civilians detained by the Russian Federation. Later, for both civilians and service members, a fact of detention in connection with Russia’s armed aggression may be established. The fact of detention itself does not grant a deferment from mobilization — that basis arises only once the fact has been officially established.

To establish that fact, it must be proven that the civilian acted or expressed support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence and held a clearly pro-Ukrainian position, or that the detention was linked to their professional activity. For example, when a journalist is detained in occupied territory while carrying out journalistic work, as in the case of Viktoria Roshchyna.Tetyana Katrychenko, Head of the Media Initiative for Human Rights

It is obvious that she was detained in connection with Russia’s armed aggression. Or, for example, a former veteran of the Anti-Terrorist Operation — he was detained not simply because of his name, but because he had served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Therefore, relatives of such detainees should submit documents and establish the fact while the person is still in detention, or the person can do so after release.

The state does not grant a deferment from mobilization to all civilians who were detained. Most likely, only a small percentage have the right to one.

You mentioned Viktoria Roshchyna. In the context of her death, I want to discuss the prospects of holding war criminals accountable. This case has received significant media attention, and some investigation results already exist. Is it realistic to hold specific Russian officials or prison commandants accountable for what happened to our colleague?

In principle, yes. But there is a key gap in this case: it is not known exactly under what circumstances she died, whether it was murder or the result of detention conditions. It is known that she was held at several detention sites, and suspicions already exist regarding certain episodes. But for the family, it is fundamentally important to identify the specific person who did it or allowed it to happen.

And this matters because both civilians and service members die in Russian captivity. The same mayor of Dniproprudne, Two soldiers released from captivity told Slidstvo.Info that Yevheniy Matveev, the mayor of Dniprorudne in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, died at SIZO No. 3 in the town of Kizel, Perm Krai, Russia. This happened almost immediately after Matveyev was transferred to this detention center—the 63-year-old man was brutally beaten during the so-called intake procedure.Yevheniy Matveyev, was killed in the very same place where Viktoriia Roshchyna most likely died — Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 3 in the town of Kizel, Perm Krai of Russia.

In reality, this is a difficult issue. We can strive to identify specific perpetrators, and in some high-profile cases, it may be possible. But in most cases, either it will not be possible to identify specific individuals, or they will never appear in court. However, we believe that Russia’s top leadership — those who effectively ordered the detention of civilians in occupied territories — will be punished.

What are the main systemic problems you see today in Ukraine regarding the investigation of war crimes and the return of civilians? And what state-level changes are critically important now?

In investigations, it is critically important to see not only individual episodes but the entire picture of crimes linked to armed aggression. For example, the killings in different parts of Bucha should not be separate cases but one case — about Russia’s actions in northern Bucha or Kyiv Oblast, or even about an order to kill civilians.

Yes, every crime has a specific perpetrator, and, as we have already said, it is important to find the guilty party who allowed or caused the death of Viktoria Roshchyna. But there is also Russia’s overarching policy aimed at destroying Ukrainians, so these processes need a comprehensive approach: not only documenting individual cases but seeing them as part of a system.

This interview was produced with the support of the Fund for Local Cooperation of the Embassy of Finland in Ukraine.