Dmytro Khyliuk

Date of disappearance: March 3, 2022

Place of disappearance: Kozarovychi village, Kyiv region

In March of last year, Dmytro Khyliuk, a journalist with one of Ukraine's largest news agencies, UNIAN, was abducted by the Russian military near his home in the village of Kozarovychi near Kyiv. After the full-scale invasion began, Dmytro could not leave for a safer place because he was taking care of his elderly parents. On March 1, 2022, the village came under occupation, and leaving was impossible. Almost immediately, the Russians searched the journalist's home, and then a shell hit his house, partially destroying it. So the family moved in with neighbors. On March 3, Dmytro and his father decided to inspect their house again to assess the damage. However, they did not get there: Russian soldiers attacked them right in the street. Dmytro's father, Vasyl Khyliuk, recalls the events: "They started shouting: "Hands up! Lie down!" They put us on the ground, searched us, even took off our boots, shot Dima under the ear, and then picked us up, put our jackets over our heads, and led us away."

Both men were detained in the Kyiv region and transferred from place to place several times. Finally, on March 11, Vasyl Khyliuk was released, and Dmytro was taken to Russia. As the international organization Reporters Without Borders journalists found out in their investigation, the journalist was first held in SIZO No. 2 in the city of Novozybkov, Bryansk region. According to a former prisoner interviewed by Reporters, special forces in the detention center regularly interrogated the journalist about his activities, accusing him of "Ukrainian propaganda and work against Russia." Dmytro Khilyuk was also beaten several times.

At the end of February 2023, a source in this pre-trial detention center, who has access to all the cells in the old building, told Reporters that Khilyuk had not been in this part of the prison since the beginning of 2023. It is unknown whether the journalist was transferred to another detention center or removed from the facility. After Dmytro's arrest, his parents received the only news from him - a letter dated April 14, 2022, in which their son wrote that he was alive and well. These few words, written in the spring, reached his parents only in September last year.

Oleksandr and Iryna Levchenko

Date of abduction: May 6, 2023

Place of abduction: Melitopol

Russians abducted the 62-year-old Iryna and Oleksandr Levchenko in the spring of 2023. At that time, Melitopol, a city in southern Ukraine, had been under occupation for more than a year after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. With the arrival of the Russians, the Levchenko family did not want to leave their home. They were sure the occupiers were not interested in ordinary pensioners, so the Russian military would not touch them.

Iryna used to work as a journalist, but since retiring, she has not been involved in professional activities. According to Iryna Levchenko's sister Olena, the couple disappeared on May 6, when they stopped contacting each other. In addition, a mutual friend saw Irina on that day surrounded by Russian soldiers on the street.

So the sister assumes that the occupiers did not like the Levchenkos and captured them in the middle of the city. What happened next to the couple is almost unknown. According to Olena's testimony, Oleksandr was able to send a note from his place of detention in Melitopol. He wrote that he was living in inhumane conditions, sleeping on a concrete floor, with almost no food. After that, an acquaintance brought food and clothes for Oleksandr, but the Russians did not want to accept the parcel.

The Levchenkos' friends also tried to find out more about their fate in the occupation of "law enforcement agencies." Still, they said that the information would be provided only to family members. But all their relatives, including their sister Olena, left Melitopol occupied. So now the relatives have very rough information about the abductees. It is known that Oleksandr is allegedly still being held in Melitopol and accused of "terrorism." It is currently unknown where his wife, Iryna is being held.

Vitalii Profatylov

Date of disappearance: April 12, 2022

Place of disappearance: Mariupol, Donetsk region

Vitalii Profatylov, 55, worked as a school bus driver in Novyi Buh in Mykolaiv Oblast, in southern Ukraine. After the Russian invasion began, Vitalii became one of the drivers who agreed to transport mobilized soldiers as Russia invaded Ukraine and began to occupy the territory. At first, the man was told that he would deliver the soldiers to Mykolaiv. But it was impossible to get to the city because of the fighting, so the buses were sent to Mariupol, a city on the Azov Sea, now controlled by Russia. The civilian drivers immediately found themselves surrounded by Russians: they could not get out of the city.

According to Vitalii's wife, Olha Profatylova, the four drivers hid from Russian bombardment at the Ilyich Plant. Despite the shelling, Vitalii tried to call his family from the blockaded city. Profatilov lost contact on April 4, 2022. Two weeks later, his wife found a video with Vitalii — he was among the prisoners of the Olenivska colony in Donetsk Oblast. "Thousands of them were in the colony yard, and I saw my husband in the front row. I recognized him by his clothes. He had changed a lot. Not all relatives recognized him," Olha recalls. Olenivka became one of the places where many Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians were held. From there, most were transported to the Russian Federation.

According to unofficial information, Vitalii was also taken to Russia, allegedly in Kursk colony No. 1. his family recently received information that Profatilov and other drivers may be held in Mordovia.

Even before the full-scale invasion, Vitalii had significant problems with his liver and heart. The man suffered a heart attack. In addition, he has gouty feet, Meniere's disease, and is deaf in one ear. He used to undergo special treatment every month. His family does not know what Vitaliy's condition is now and whether he receives any help in Russian prisons.

Andrii Harasymenko

Date of disappearance: March 25, 2022

Place of disappearance: Novoukrainske village, Chernihiv region

Before Russia's full-scale invasion, Andrii Harasymenko lived with his wife Nataliia in the village of Novoukrainske in Chernihiv Oblast, a region in northern Ukraine that borders Russia. The couple had two daughters. Andriy worked as a gas service foreman, had a household and cattle.

On February 24, a column of Russian tanks drove through Novoukrainske, and the fighting for Chernihiv began, with shells constantly exploding nearby. In March, the family spent most of the time in the cellar, hiding from shelling.

On March 25, men in uniform and with machine guns broke into the Garasymenko's home. Natalia's wife recalls that there were so many Russian soldiers that it looked like they had come to detain a known terrorist. The woman noticed people in specific uniforms, almost all of whom had balaclavas on their faces. "It was probably either the military police or the FSB," Natalia believes. The family was interrogated for about an hour. At the same time, the Russians searched the house: they took documents, cell phones, a tablet, a computer system unit, flash drives, flashlights, and a Wi-Fi router.

After the search, they packed up and left. They took Garasymenko with them in the APC. Natalia decided that Andriy was taken to the village of Vyshneve near Novoukrainske. She went there twice to try to find out about her husband's fate. During the second trip, on March 28, a Russian soldier told her that the prisoners had been taken in an unknown direction.

For almost two months there was no news about the fate of the kidnapped man. The family did not know if he was alive. Natalia was shown photos of civilians tortured by the Russians and found in Vyshneve for identification. Her husband was not among those killed.

Eventually, he was found in Russia. A witness who returned home on an exchange said that he saw Garasymenko in the Kursk detention center. "He didn't tell me everything, but I realized that Andriy had been badly beaten. He asked me to tell him that he was there. It was May 22, 2022," Natalia recalls.

The next news the family received was in late December 2022. At that time, a man came out for an exchange and said that he had seen Garasymenko in the Tula Correctional Colony No. 1 in the city of Donskoy. In the summer of 2023, new information emerged from relatives of other prisoners: Andriy was transferred to the Polyana colony in the Republic of Mordovia.

Garasymenko has kidney disease and was scheduled to undergo kidney stone removal surgery at the end of February 2022. But due to the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he was unable to get to the hospital in Chernihiv. The family does not know whether the man is receiving any treatment in Russian prisons.

Serhii Sytnyk

Date of disappearance: March 16, 2022

Place of disappearance: Trostianets, Sumy region

At the time of his abduction by the Russian military, who had occupied the town of Trostyanets in Ukraine the day before, Ukrainian Serhii Sytnyk was 32 years old. No one knows for sure why he was captured. Perhaps because he was a hunter. The next day after his abduction, the Russians came to his home. They turned the house upside down and took everything in sight, including food and warm socks. Serhiy's mother witnessed the search. She learned from conversations with the Russian military that her son was alive.

She went to the Trostianets railway station, where the Russians held Ukrainians, to look for Serhii. She walked with her hands up. There were a lot of Russian soldiers around, she says. It was very frightening. However, she did not give up trying to discover her son's fate. Finally, one of the Russians said that Serhii was not at the station and advised her to look for him at the local police station. But there, the woman was also escorted away with nothing.

The family of the abducted man is sure that the Russians took him to the neighboring village of Boromlia because on April 4, 2022, after the de-occupation of the village, they found Serhii's hunting license, bank cards, and work ID. After the Russians fled, his mother and sister were looking for their husband among the tortured people in the village. But Serhii was not among the dead either.

The head of the Boromlyanska community told the women that the Russians took many Ukrainian prisoners. Russians took them through the village of Krasnopillia toward the Russian border. Many of them are still being held in prisons on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Iryna Horobtsova

Date of disappearance: May 13, 2022

Place of disappearance: Kherson

Iryna Horobtsova, a resident of Kherson, was abducted on her birthday, May 13, 2022. The woman turned 37. Six masked Russian soldiers broke into her apartment and started searching. Iryna's parents were very scared. Her mother was crying, and the occupants locked her in the kitchen. After turning the house upside down, the Russians left, taking Iryna with them.

Before the occupation, Horobtsova led a successful life in Kherson: she worked in an IT company and studied to become a psychologist. She loved to travel, went swimming, and helped people. When the Russians occupied the city, Iryna drove doctors who lived in the suburbs to work and raised money for the local blood transfusion center. She also attended rallies against the occupation and was not afraid to express her pro-Ukrainian position.

Horobtsova was abducted from her parents' apartment, which overlooked Chornobaivka airport. It was at this airport that the Russians deployed their equipment and personnel, and Ukrainian troops repeatedly hit them. After another effective hit, the Russian military began abducting locals, suspecting them of adjusting fire. One of the victims was Iryna Horobtsova. The next day after her abduction, her parents went to the Kherson detention center to give their daughter a change of clothes. But the occupiers did not allow them to give them any clothes or food. The parents tried every day to get a meeting with Iryna, but in vain. After a while, the detention center informed them that Gorobtsova was no longer there. The woman was taken to the temporarily occupied Crimea. Her parents went to look for her in the Simferopol detention center, but no one there wanted to talk to them. The relatives hired a lawyer in Crimea. He found out that Irina had indeed been brought to the Simferopol detention center, where her fingerprints were taken. Now she is allegedly being held in Sevastopol.

Serhiy Leibak

Date of abduction: March 19, 2022

Place of abduction: Kinburn Spit, Mykolaiv region

The Russians took 35-year-old Serhiy Leibak prisoner after they occupied his native Kinburn Spit, a nature reserve in southern Ukraine, following the start of a full-scale invasion. Before the full-scale war, Serhii lived in the village of Pokrovske with his wife, Khrystyna, and two children. He was a nature conservation inspector in the Sviatoslav's White Coast National Park. On March 19, 2022, the Russians came to his house when Serhiy was at work. His wife suggests that the occupiers might have been interested in the pickup trucks their husbands were driving, as the vehicles were suitable for transporting military cargo.

After her husband disappeared, Khrystyna had no information about whether he was alive or where he was. She and her young children had to flee the Russian occupation alone on a tiny boat in a stormy sea.

Every day, Khrystyna looked through hundreds of prisoner photos she found online to see if she could find a familiar face. Only in September 2022 did she find a photo of her abducted husband. "Serhiy looked terrible, had bruises on his face, an injured blue hand, which he used to hold a sign with his name on it," Khrystyna recalls. She found people who had seen Serhiy in the detention center in Crimea. Later, she learned Leibak had been transferred to a pre-trial detention center in Taganrog. Later, a military man released on exchange told Khrystyna that he had been with her husband in a pre-trial detention center in the Russian city of Ryazhsk, Ryazan region, until February 16, 2023. According to the soldier, civilian prisoners are held together with military prisoners. The cells are overcrowded, and the hostages are poorly fed and often tortured. In addition, neither lawyers nor representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross have access to Ukrainian prisoners.

Pavlo Zaporozhets

Date of disappearance: May 9, 2022

Place of disappearance: Kherson, Kherson region

Pavlo Zaporozhets, a 30-year-old lawyer from Kherson, was detained by the Russian military on May 9, 2022, in Kherson. Before that, he had lived in the occupied city for almost three months - on February 24, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The man has experience of serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine after 2014. He retired and most recently worked in the state tax service. After the occupation of the Kherson region, Russians began to organize raids and searches in the city: they were looking for those with military experience. Former soldiers and their families were considered potentially dangerous to Russia and capable of resisting. After his abduction, Pavlo was held in a temporary detention center in Kherson for four months, then transferred to SIZO 1 in Simferopol.

The man's house was searched, and equipment was seized. In October 2022, Zaporozhets and other civilian detainees were transferred to SIZO 2. Pavlo's sister, Maryna, says that he was beaten in Crimea, and in February 2023, he was transferred to Rostov-on-Don in the Russian Federation. There, a trial began — Zaporozhets was accused of violating Article 361 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for "intent to commit a terrorist act" in Kherson. Pavlo's family has filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights against his illegal detention and hopes for publicity and a response from international organizations.

Volodymyr Mykolayenko

Date of abduction: April 18, 2022

Place of abduction: Kherson

Volodymyr Mykolaienko was the mayor of Kherson, a regional center in southern Ukraine, from 2014 to 2020. Mykolaienko, 62, did not leave his hometown when the occupation began. The Russians repeatedly tried to force him to cooperate, but he resolutely refused. On April 18, Volodymyr disappeared, leaving his home and never returning.

The former mayor of Kherson became one of dozens of local residents abducted in the spring of 2022. Most were involved in the city's defense or those who openly supported Ukraine despite the occupation. Soon after, the Russians released a propaganda video with Mykolayenko, but even in captivity, the man behaved with dignity and did not abandon his pro-Ukrainian position. In early May, the occupiers came to search Mykolayenko's and his daughter's apartments. That was the last time his wife Maryna saw Volodymyr. "Two cars with the letters 'Z' arrived. There were military men in one and men in black uniforms in the other. I think they were FSB officers. My husband was in the car with them. When he got out, I told him: "Tell me everything." He said, "Tell everyone that I love you very much," Maryna recalls. According to the woman, the search itself turned into a regular robbery. The Russians took everything they saw: routers, perfume, alcohol, mushrooms, and coffee.

The former mayor was initially held in the Kherson police station, where he was brutally tortured. Later, the man was transported to the occupied Crimea. And after a while — to the territory of the Russian Federation.

Ivan Honchar

Date of disappearance: April 9, 2022

Place of disappearance: border with Russia near Novoazovsk, Donetsk region

The beginning of the Russian invasion was witnessed by 24-year-old Ivan Honchar in Mariupol, a city on the coast of the Azov Sea. He had a successful business there: he owned a branded clothing and footwear store.

From the first days of the full-scale war, Russia began shelling Mariupol, and Ivan, along with his girlfriend and mother, hid in a private house. Soon a Russian missile hit the house, and he and his family miraculously survived. They moved to a large bomb shelter near the Azovstal stadium. About 150 townspeople were hiding there. However, on April 5, 2022, the bomb shelter also failed: after the hit, a fire broke out and the room was filled with smoke. Civilians were forced to go outside in the middle of the night, while the occupiers kept pouring fire on the city.

Ivan and his family sought shelter on the seashore. There, the Russian military directed them toward the border. According to Ivan's brother Ilya, Chechens started harassing him on the way, accusing him of belonging to the Ukrainian military. "He grew a beard and had an athletic appearance, although he had never served anywhere," says Ilya.

On April 9, Ivan, his mother and girlfriend decided to cross the Russian border, intending to reach Ukraine via Russia, Georgia and Europe. But at the border, Ivan disappeared. Separately from other family members, he was summoned to one of the offices. That was the last time his family saw him.

For many months, there was no news about him. Only in the fall of 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that Ivan Honchar had been detained for opposing the so-called special military operation. In February 2023, a prisoner released from captivity reported that Ivan was held in Taganrog, Russia, and then transferred to the city of Kamensk-Shakhtynsky. According to a former prisoner with whom Illya spoke, prisoners there are subjected to psychological and physical violence. In particular, in Kamensk-Shakhtynsk, dogs are set on them, stones are thrown at them, and they are beaten with a stun gun.

Mykyta Buzinov

Date of disappearance: March 4, 2022

Place of disappearance: Mykhailo-Kotsiubynske village, Chernihiv region

Leaving the large city of Chernihiv, in northern Ukraine, close to the border with Belarus, for a small village last February, 25-year-old Mykyta Buzinov thought he would be safe. The day before, Russia had invaded Ukraine and occupied the territory. For the first few days, he and his family stayed in the quiet village of Mykhailo-Kotsiubynske, 20 kilometers from the city. But the peace did not last long. The Russians got there too, occupying the village. When the Ukrainian military destroyed several enemy columns, the occupiers began abducting civilians, looking for those who could communicate with the Ukrainian military.

Mykyta worked as an ordinary driver and had nothing to do with the army. So he didn't think his family could be of interest to the Russian army. But on March 4, enemy soldiers came to the Buzinovs' house.

The whole family was home: mother, uncle, brother, and Mykyta's fiancée Kateryna. People were taken outside, and their phones were taken away. And then the horror began. Mykyta was stripped naked to check for tattoos and weapon marks on his body. The Russians pointed machine guns at the boy and his brother. The military shouted that they had found maps in his brother's phone. And they accused Mykyta himself of allegedly transmitting some data. To intimidate people, the Russians even imitated an execution: they took Mykyta behind a barn and started shooting. The boy's mother went through hell because she did not know if her child was alive.

Later, his fiancée Kateryna was forced to kneel next to Mykyta. They also pointed a gun at the girl. They put psychological pressure on her and threatened to kill her beloved right before Kateryna.

Finally, the military left, but took Mykyta with them. The family had no idea where to look for him. She hoped that the boy would return the next day, but time passed, and there was no news of her son and her beloved.

After the village was liberated, the Buzinov family learned that a local resident, whom the Russians had also abducted on March 4, was found tortured: after days of beatings, he had been shot in the head. Everyone was afraid that Nikita would not suffer the same fate. His mother took DNA samples. Months passed, but the family received no matches. The boy was not among the dead.

Finally, nine months after his abduction, he received news that he might be held in the Russian city of Belgorod. A lawyer hired by his relatives went to the city, but received a reply saying that there was no Nikita Buzinov in the Belgorod detention center. Later, another message came: a man with that name had been "released" from the local prison.

So the family hopes the guy is still alive and in Russian custody. And one day, he will return home.

Mariano Garcia Calatayud

Date of disappearance: March 19, 2022

Place of disappearance: Kherson, Kherson region

Mariano is a Spanish citizen. The man was 74 years old when the Russian military abducted him in the center of occupied Kherson. Prior to the full-scale invasion, the man had been living in Ukraine for several years, doing volunteer work, often traveling to the contact line in the east of the country, bringing humanitarian aid to civilians, and visiting orphanages.

"Mariano has a good heart. When he learned about the war in Ukraine in 2014, about the suffering of civilians, he left everything and came here to help people," says his civilian wife, Tetiana. When Kherson was occupied in 2022, Mariano and other citizens attended pro-Ukrainian rallies, hoping to force the occupiers to leave. On March 19, 2022, Mariano did not return home after one of the rallies. "He managed to call me and tell me that he had come to the gate, but when I went down to open it for him, there was no one at the door," Tetiana adds. The man was detained in Kherson and later transferred to the occupied Crimea to a detention center where Russians also hold hundreds of Ukrainian civilians.

Witnesses who managed to get out of there say that Mariano's health condition deteriorated: his legs swelled, and he suffered a heart attack but did not receive proper medical care. The Russians are not pressing official charges against the Spanish citizen. He is being held incommunicado, not allowed to communicate with his family or have a lawyer. Mariano's wife appealed to the Spanish government, the media, and law enforcement agencies of Ukraine, wrote numerous requests to various institutions in the Russian Federation and occupied Crimea, but has not yet received an official explanation of what Mariano Garcia Calatayud is accused of.

Ihor Palamarchuk

Date of disappearance: August 16, 2022

Place of disappearance: Bilozerka village, Kherson region

Ihor Palamarchuk is an entrepreneur from the village of Bilozerka in Kherson region. After the occupation, he decided to evacuate his wife while he remained at home. The man was first detained in June 2022. "The Russian military set up a torture chamber in the local prosecutor's office, and that's where Ihor was taken. They beat the man, took him to the field four times and simulated an execution. At the time of his detention, he was 52 years old and looked his age, and when he was released ten days later, he looked like an old man," says Liubov, Ihor's wife. Palamarchuk told her that civilians were tortured with electric shocks, and he constantly heard screams in the room. They hardly fed them: instead of food, they threw bread on the floor. Palamarchuk was abducted for the second time on August 16, 2022. For a long time, his fate was unknown. After the village was liberated in the fall of 2022, his family tried to find out where he had disappeared to, but no one knew anything. One day, in a Russian media story about captured Ukrainians, Liubov Palamarchuk saw a gaunt man who looked like Ihor. The HRMMU found a prisoner of war released as a result of the exchange, who confirmed that he had seen Ihor Palamarchuk in one of the detention centers in the Russian Federation. There are prisoners of war and civilian Ukrainians held there. The conditions of detention are terrible: prisoners are often beaten and not provided with medical care. For a year, Igor Palamarchuk's family has not received official confirmation of where and why he is being held by Russia.