By Olha Chepil | 2024-07-01

KYIV -- Russia has imprisoned more than 30 Ukrainian journalists whose whereabouts and health conditions are largely unknown, according to human rights activists.

The Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR), which tracks the number of civilians held captive in Russia, is aware of 32 Ukrainian journalists illegally held by Russia.

Russia arrested some of them 10 years ago after it illegally annexed Crimea, and others since the start of the full scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, said MIHR executive director Tatyana Katrychenko.

"These people were in information work: some worked in the media; some were citizen journalists," she told Kontur. "The ones held in Crimea were covering trials and were detained for their activity and public exposure [of Russian misdeeds]."

'Russia isn't telling anyone'

Representatives of the Red Cross and other international institutions, as well as lawyers, do not have access to the imprisoned journalists, and getting information about them is very difficult.

"Russia isn't telling anyone where it is holding these people," said Oksana Mikhalevich, a lawyer with the Advocate Advisory Group.

"When service members are exchanged, we get at least some information," she told Kontur, adding that they know the journalists are being held like common criminals in regular prisons.

Exchanges that took place between March and May 2022 involved the release of more than 100 civilians who were held in Russian prisons, she said.

But the exchange procedures have changed over time -- now only troops are exchanged. The fate of imprisoned civilians is unresolved.

"Journalists are indeed civilians. But civilians are not eligible to be exchanged because nobody has the right to detain them [in the first place]," said Mikhalevich. "So these are cases when nothing may be done from a legal perspective."

Russia is violating the rights of the captive Ukrainian journalists, legal analysts say. Those rights include being able to exchange correspondence, make a telephone call, and let one's family and country know which prisons they are being held in.

Many of the journalists reportedly are being tortured as well, according to Katrychenko.

'For who knows what'

Russia's persecution of Ukrainian reporters continues in occupied Crimea, as well as in the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces, say observers.

The Russians sentenced Serhiy Tsygipa, a journalist from Novaya Kakhovka, to 13 years in prison for "espionage." He was abducted on March 12, 2022, while traveling to a neighboring town with humanitarian aid.

Russia is targeting journalists and their families to suppress free speech and intimidate civilians, say observers.

"Russia kidnaps these people, and then looks around for an accusation to make. We know they are often accused of terrorism or espionage and then transported to a Russian prison," said Katrychenko.

For two years nothing has been known about what happened to Dmytro Khilyuk, a Ukrainian journalist and correspondent for the news agency UNIAN.

He and his elderly parents were in the village of Kozarovychi (Kyiv province), which came under Russian occupation at the beginning of the war. On March 3, 2022, Russian forces detained Khilyuk and his father.

"They shot over their heads. Then they pulled their caps over the eyes of Dmytro and his father and held them in a basement for a long time. Later his father was released, but Dima was taken to Russia," Natalia Boguta, a journalist and Khilyuk's close friend, told Kontur.

Natalia is convinced that Khilyuk was locked up for his professional activities.

Troops who returned to Ukraine through prisoner swaps have said that Khilyuk was with them at various times, in various prisons, but the Russians did not call him anything more than a journalist.

"My colleagues and I have been searching for Dmytro since mid-March 2022, interviewing witnesses, and preparing materials about his illegal abduction and detention in a Russian prison," Boguta said.

"His current location is unknown. The entire journalistic community respects Dima. Everyone is shocked that he has to go through this horror and be imprisoned somewhere in Russia for who knows what."

If Russia were acting in accordance with international law, then a journalist suspected of some kind of activity would get a trial and have a lawyer to represent him, said Mikhalevich, who represents Khilyuk's parents.

"From a legal perspective, some [defendants] have criminal proceedings initiated against them and there are at least some grounds for this. But many people, such as Dmytro, have no criminal proceedings against them," said Mikhalevich.

"He has simply been held for more than two years for who knows what," he added.