Kidnappings, torture and executions: Russian terror in occupied Ukrainian territories

MoscowOn March 21, 2022, Russian troops stormed the home of Vladimir Kasapa, the mayor of Novopetrivka, a village of about a thousand inhabitants in the Mykolaiv region of southeastern Ukraine. The soldiers wounded him and his wife in the feet and demanded he return the weapons the Kremlin army had abandoned during an initial withdrawal the day before. Vladimir collected all the weapons the villagers had taken and returned them to the soldiers, but that wasn't enough, and they kidnapped him. Ten months later, when the Ukrainian army regained control of the town, they discovered his body in a hole, bearing signs of torture.

Like Vladimir, Thousands of Ukrainians were victims of repression by Russian security services in the occupied territoriesespecially during the first months of the war. It wasn't until three years later that a mission from the Memorial Human Rights Center, an organization dissolved by the Russian authorities, visited these areas, spoke with witnesses, and reconstructed the horror of those days.

Lawyer Natalia Morozova, one of the three members of the mission, explained to ARA that the occupiers primarily targeted citizens they believed capable of resistance: former soldiers, veterans of the Donbas war, members of the territorial defense forces, law enforcement officers, and civil servants. But they also targeted hunters and forestry workers, whom they suspected of possessing shotguns, NGO volunteers, and ordinary citizens chosen arbitrarily.

Soldiers would stop people in the street and demand they unlock their cell phones in search of incriminating material. One boy, for example, was arrested because he was carrying a discount card from the Ukraina supermarket in his wallet, printed with the colors of the Ukrainian flag. "They accused him of being a nationalist and a fascist, beat him in the truck that was transporting him to the detention center, and gouged out one of his eyes," Morozova recalls.

However, in general, the repression was not chaotic, but systematic. In Butxa, a city emblematic of the atrocities of the Russian army.One of the survivors, the town hall manager Dmitri Gapchenko, asserts that the military possessed more detailed lists than the village's own records. According to the lawyer, this suggests that individuals on the ground had been passing information to the Russian secret services before the invasion. Sometimes, those arrested themselves became informants: "They were drunks who didn't respect the curfew and, to avoid being arrested, turned in their neighbors." The Memorial Center estimates that more than 600 people were murdered in Butxa, and dozens are still missing.

Although many of those abducted were held for months without their families knowing anything and eventually turned up dead, Morozova maintains that the police had no interest in torturing them to death. "They were supposed to break them so they would confess to the most absurd crimes, but not kill them," he says. "Some were forced on camera to explain that they supported the Ukrainian Armed Forces or that they were artillerymen." Recordings that were later used for propaganda purposes.

The Dark Hell of Kherson

In the big cities the repression was even more systematic. In Kherson, occupied for more than eight monthsInitially, Russian soldiers did not resort to violence, but instead surgically arrested citizens they deemed dangerous. Survivors from one of the illegal detention centers recounted to activists how they had been held for weeks in the basement of an office building, in darkness, half-starved, and with very little drinking water. "They were brutally beaten with fists, feet, wooden batons, and rubber truncheons, tortured with electric shocks, and had clothespins placed on their earlobes, toes, fingers, nipples, and genitals," the lawyer narrates. When the Russian army had to hastily abandon the city, many were released, but even then they were left in an open field, blindfolded, and shots were fired into the air, simulating executions.

Memorial considers that all These actions can undoubtedly be classified as war crimes“These are completely illegal and arbitrary detentions. We haven’t spoken to anyone who has been formally charged, they were prevented from contacting lawyers, and their families didn’t know where they were,” Morozova argues. She also laments that the victims cannot access justice, although she is confident that the perpetrators can be identified and punished in the future. “Once the war is over, holding them accountable for international crimes must become a prerequisite for peace. Without it, that peace will not be sustainable or lasting,” she concludes.