Enforced disappearances
An activist from Nova Kakhovka, Oleksandr (his surname withheld for security reasons), filmed the dismantling of Lenin monuments across the Kherson region before the full-scale invasion. After the occupation began, he became a target for the Russians. He was tortured for two weeks in order to force him to reveal the identities of other civic leaders in the city and to “cooperate” with the occupiers.
25 June 2025
The Russian military prosecutor’s office claims that Spanish volunteer Mariano Garcia Calatayud left Crimea for the Kherson region. Before that, he had been held for over a year in a detention center in Simferopol after being abducted in Kherson. The current whereabouts of the 77-year-old man, who suffered a heart attack while in captivity, remain unknown, and his relatives continue to search for him.
13 June 2025
Confession in front of the camera, as if during interrogation: in Crimea, 65-year-old Yevhen Nenko from the Luhansk region was publicly forced to “repent” for pro-Ukrainian graffiti. The man is just one example among dozens of Ukrainian civilians the Russian Federation detained or convicted in May under fabricated charges of espionage, extremism, or assisting the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The scale of political repression is growing, and the human stories are becoming increasingly harrowing.
10 June 2025
It was not her first encounter with the occupiers — and it would not be the last one. But the next time, the Russians would not be so pointedly polite. A few months later, Liubov would be tortured by members of the Russian Armed Forces because of her son and her alleged transmission of coordinates to Ukrainian defenders. She shared her story with the MIHR.
10 June 2025
The Southern District Military Court in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don sentenced three civilians from Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia Region in a case involving explosions in the city. 31-year-old Artem Murdid was sentenced to life imprisonment; his common-law wife, 28-year-old Hanna Voshkoder, was handed down a sentence of 20 years in a general regime colony. Artem’s 50-year-old mother, Hanna Murdid, received 22 years.
4 June 2025
Both men were from the Kherson region. On 26 March 2022, they set out together from Kyiv to return home. Ruslan headed for the Bilozerka district, and Khidir headed for the Chaplynka district. Kherson region was already under occupation at that time, but civilians could still move in and out.
28 May 2025
Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians taken from areas briefly occupied by Russian forces in 2022 remain imprisoned without trial. Not a single one of them has been brought before a court. The charges against them are not even stipulated in the Russian criminal code. They receive no letters or care packages, and they have no access to legal representation. Their families often learn of their whereabouts only from prisoners of war released during exchanges.
4 April 2025
Throughout 2022, Russian forces sought to establish their own governing structures in the occupied areas of the Kherson region. Central to this effort was the creation of a repressive apparatus staffed by local collaborators. They were supposed to operate under the supervision of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), which reinforced its presence with traitors including former Ukrainian officials from Crimea, the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, and “Berkut” riot police officers who fled Ukraine after the Maidan protests.
31 March 2025
In the summer of 2022, while Kherson was still under occupation, Russians abducted nine civilians—Serhii Ofitserov, Oleh Bohdanov, Yurii Tavozhnianskyi, Serhii Kabakov, Serhii Kovalskyi, Kostiantyn Reznik, Serhii Heidt, Yurii Kaiov, and Denys Lialka. They were accused of “preparing and committing an act of international terrorism.” Initially, the occupiers transferred the men to Simferopol, then to the Lefortovo detention center in Moscow. They are currently being held in Rostov.
18 March 2025
Roman Ishchenko was abducted from his own home on April 19, 2022. For three years, he has remained incommunicado. The Russians have not filed any charges against him and refuse to disclose where he is being held.
12 March 2025