From Kupiansk to Melitopol: Russian system of torture in the occupied territories

They kidnapped people from their homes at gunpoint, put them in a car with a bag over their head, and took them to an unknown destination. They kept them in a crowded cell without fresh air. They did not give them enough food and water and did not treat them.

They took people for interrogations and tried to find out the names of local military, activists, and volunteers. They beat people with their fists, feet, truncheons, and rifle butts. They connected terminals to their fingers, chest, and genitals, and turned on the current. They threatened them with deportation, mutilation, rape, and execution.

This is a typical scenario for many civilians illegally abducted by the Russian military in Kupiansk, Kherson, Nova Kakhovka, Melitopol, Berdiansk, and other occupied localities.

The descriptions of the experience are sometimes repeated to the smallest detail: the same detentions, torture and interrogations, similar conditions of detention, and even rules of conduct in prison.

Torture of residents of the occupied territories is part of the policy of terrorizing the civilian population of Ukraine. The testimonies and other evidence are carefully studied by human rights activists to prove the systematic nature and scale of Russian crimes, including those recognized by international organizations as crimes against humanity.

ZMINA analysts analyzed the testimonies of victims who were illegally detained by Russians in various places in the occupied territories between April 2022 and March 2023. Here are the main points from the analytical material “Illegal detention, torture and ill-treatment of the civilian population of Ukraine: similarities in the practice of committing crimes in the regions occupied by Russia in 2022”.

Who are the Russians looking for in the occupation and how?

In the occupied territories, the Russian authorities have established a so-called security regime with the help of the military: document checks on the streets, “filtration” procedures, and searches in government agencies, private businesses, and residential buildings.

“We had scheduled [checks]: the Russians — the Russian Guard — conducted searches of the population. They were usually looking for partisans and anyone who was against the Russian Federation. To intimidate,” said the interviewed victim.

First and foremost, the Russian military is looking for current and former law enforcement officers and military personnel in the occupation, especially those who took part in the ATO/JFO. They also perceive local government representatives, volunteers, activists, cultural workers, educators, and any civilians who have ever expressed their support for Ukraine as a threat.

To identify these people, Russians often use documents found in seized administrative buildings. These are, for example, lists of people liable for military service or lists of ATO fighters who were supposed to receive land plots.

The Russian security forces are also looking for people for photos and videos of resistance actions at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, and sometimes even show photos from the Euromaidan era of detainees.

In the occupied territories, people can be detained on the street: stopped for document checks, and taken to a detention center. Often, the Russians do not need reasons or evidence for this — they have repeatedly constructed accusations based on their own assumptions.

One of the interviewed victims was detained because they found a photo of his nephew with the symbols of the Right Sector. At the same time, the nephew himself had left the country before February 24, 2022.

During the search of another victim, Russians found a scarf of Kharkiv football club Metalist. The man was accused of participating in the events in Odesa on May 2, 2014, as the team was scheduled to play the local Chornomorets that day.

At the same time, the main source of evidence about the local population for the Russians is information from other civilians. It is important to note that this is not only about denunciations, which the Russians encourage people to do in every way possible. It is often information obtained under torture from those who were detained earlier.

For example, the Russians could have set conditions for the detainees:

“If you want to get out, you have to turn in 10 drug addicts, 10 ATO fighters. They gave the guys a piece of paper and a pencil,” one of the respondents recalls.

In this way, the Russian administration is trying, in particular, to destroy established social ties in communities, human rights activists emphasize. After that, people who have been kept in one place sometimes tend to be distrustful even of each other.

In addition, quite often victims know for sure who passed information about them to Russian units. As a result, they break off old social ties, stop communicating with former friends and acquaintances, or even try to move.

The conditions were similar in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv regions.

ZMINA human rights activists investigated, in particular, the torture chambers that the Russians set up in temporary detention centers in Kherson and Kupiansk, in the penal colony No. 66 in Berdiansk, as well as in the police stations of Nova Kakhovka and Tokmak.

Even though these places have the necessary infrastructure, the Russians have created inhumane conditions there.

Victims often tell of overcrowded cells: a four-person cell, for example, could hold about 20 people. Because of this, many detained civilians had to sleep on the floor, sometimes even without mattresses. Moreover, ZMINA documenters recorded cases where detainees could only stand in their cells.

All the interviewees whose testimonies were analyzed in the report stated that they were deprived of any privacy during their detention. In some of the cells where the interviewees were held, there was no toilet at all. They were usually given plastic bottles, buckets, or pots for their natural needs. These containers were kept in the same room as the hostages, and they were not always allowed to take them out.

Most of the respondents also reported problems with drinking water and poor nutrition: they were fed irregularly, and the food was mostly stale. Some victims received food only in parcels from relatives.

However, for some detainees, the Russians did not accept parcels at all. This could be a “punishment” for violating the rules established by the occupiers or an attempt to hide the fact that they detained a person.

Many victims say that the Russians also restricted access to fresh air in the cell.

“I was released on May 28, but there [in the illegal detention facility — ed.], the heating — two large thick pipes — was still running around the clock. It was simply impossible to breathe there. It was like a bathhouse which you could not leave,” says the victim, who was held in penal colony No. 66 in Berdiansk.

The military and other “security forces” use access to fresh air as an additional element of pressure on detainees. The documenters received several testimonies of guards or convoys deliberately closing the “feeding trough” — a window for food delivery — in the cell door. This window was often the only opening through which air entered the room, so when it was closed, it became very difficult to breathe in the cell.

In general, punishment through deteriorating conditions of detention is a common practice among Russians. The vast majority of respondents who were held in occupation in different regions of Ukraine reported such cases.

Victims from Nova Kakhovka, Kupiansk, or Berdiansk describe very similar “rules of conduct” in detention, the way guards communicate with them, and the procedures for escorting them. At the same time, they resemble typical procedures characteristic of penitentiary institutions in Russia.

For example, when the cell door is opened, all detainees must face the wall, lean on it with their hands, and spread their legs. Heads and eyes should be kept down at all times.

Usually, they put on a hat or a bag on a person who is taken for interrogation, sometimes with additional tape on top. They are led with their hands tied, in a semi-bent position.

“You leave the cell, facing the wall. They immediately put a bag on your head and wrap it with tape. They put your hands back, handcuffs are put on. And two people pull you out under your arms,” said the victim from Kupyansk.

ZMINA has also recorded numerous cases when convoys deliberately created situations for detainees to be injured “on their own”: on the way to interrogation, a person with a bag on his head could be pushed into a wall or made to stumble on the stairs.

Similar patterns of interrogation and torture

Human rights activists note that most of those interviewed had suffered torture — only “valuable” prisoners or those who were sick were not abused.

The documenters recorded several cases when the occupiers abducted and held women with cancer. They were hardly ever subjected to physical violence, but were psychologically abused and not allowed to take the necessary medications regularly.

Many detainees in different cities were tortured using similar methods. Even specific elements of torture were repeated.

Most often, people were beaten with their hands, feet, rubber truncheons, wooden bats, and gun butts. Sometimes they used whatever was at hand, such as books or plastic water bottles.

The detainees also spoke about specific long-term beatings: they did not pose a direct threat to life, but the constant impact made it impossible to endure them, the respondents recalled.

“They took an ordinary plastic water pipe and slammed it. At first, it seems like nothing, but when they do this for 10 minutes, you are ready to die there,” says one of the victims.

In all occupied territories, detainees were subjected to electric shocks. Victims could be beaten with stun guns during searches, detentions, or in cells. However, the worst torture was electric shocks during interrogations. Most of the respondents recall this as the worst experience during their detention.

“He brought me there and said: ‘Sit down on the floor, lean on the wall with your back, legs forward.’ They took off my slippers and put terminals on my toes. He said: ‘Tell me: police officers, SBU officers, ATO fighters — who do you know?’. And he started to shock me,” recalls the victim from Melitopol.

To increase the suffering of the detainees, the terminals through which the current was supplied were connected to the most sensitive parts of the body: fingers, ears, nipples, and genitals.

The victims note that the occupiers took breaks in the torture so that the person would not faint and partially restore the sensitivity of the damaged parts of the body. In addition, torture was briefly stopped so that the victim realized his or her situation and became more “cooperative”, the victims recounted the words of the Russians.

The military personnel who tortured the interviewees often alternated between types of torture to inflict greater suffering. During a four-hour interrogation, one woman was hit on the back of the head with a water bottle, strangled with a cable, a bag was placed over her head and her mouth and nose were clamped shut, she was threatened with electric shocks, and a gun was held to her head and fired next to her.

“On the second or third blow, I started to feel that something was wrong with my head. It must have been smashed, because there was a lot of pain, and my eyes were all white. I started to feel nauseous and dizzy. I fainted briefly. Then they started doing something else,” thewoman recalls.

All interviewees reported constant psychological pressure on them and other detainees. ZMINA documenters have repeatedly recorded cases of “paired” interrogations when relatives or close friends were detained, interrogated, or tortured at the same time. Victims were constantly intimidated and threatened with death or injury. Cases of mock executions were also common.

“They beat me on purpose in front of her [wife]. Then they took her to another room, and they shot me twice with a pistol near my ear. They told her that was it — I was shot,” one of the victims recounts.

Human rights activists emphasize that such a simulated murder involves the risk of an unplanned shot, and therefore directly threatens the victim's life.

In general, ZMINA analysts unequivocally assess most of the documented cases as torture — the Russian military, security forces, and their subordinates deliberately inflicted severe suffering on the detainees.

Typical performers

Victims from Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv regions said that detentions and interrogations were usually led by FSB representatives. They were often dressed in civilian clothes, but had elements of military equipment, such as shoes, and did not show their faces. To do this, they either put on balaclavas themselves, blindfolded the victims, or both.

“The FSB is engaged in detaining people, collecting information, and interrogating them. They are always in civilian clothes, driving cars without license plates — just a black plate,” said a respondent from Kherson.

In addition to the FSB officers, interrogations and so-called investigative actions were conducted by military personnel who called themselves representatives of the “L/DPR” armed groups or police officers. Sometimes they only psychologically “prepared” the detainee for a meeting with the FSB.

“For 6 or 7 hours, various so-called representatives of the newly created police came into the room. Each one of them told me a desperate story about how they were suffering, how they were starving, how they were not given money. And how they went to work for Russia to save people and so on,” recalls one of the victims.

Guards and escorts were often recruited to illegal detention facilities from the local population. Sometimes these were people who had previously served sentences for criminal offenses. They are well aware of prison culture and use the worst practices in their treatment of civilian detainees.

Some respondents spoke about the “training” of locals who agreed to work for the enemy in such torture chambers. After that, the regime of detention usually became stricter: communication between cells was prohibited, parcels from relatives were checked more thoroughly, and searches were more frequent.

According to the researchers, the Russians and their subordinates coordinated their actions not only at the level of one place of detention but also between different such facilities. For example, there were cases when detainees were transported to a detention facility in another locality and the guards were informed of the reasons for their detention. In some cases, the detainees were labeled as “political” or accused of assisting the resistance movement or collaborating with the AFU. Then such a person was treated more harshly in the new place.

Such a system of “torture chambers” is part of the general policy of terror in the occupied territories, human rights activists emphasize. Usually, these places operate openly, sometimes even emphatically and demonstratively. Residents know not only where abducted people are kept, but also what is done to them.

The occupying power takes root through fear, deliberately destroying social ties in communities and mutual trust between people. Russian forces are establishing control over networks and the Internet to cut off ties between people under occupation and the government-controlled territories. This makes it much more difficult to collect evidence of Russian crimes.

At the same time, some victims are gradually losing faith that the perpetrators will be punished, at least soon, and are becoming less willing to testify about their experiences.

Author: Diana Kolodiazhna, ZMINA journalist