By Olha Chepil | 2024-09-09

KYIV -- Harrowing conditions in Russian prisons are leading to the deaths of captured Ukrainian troops at an alarming rate, human rights activists say.

More than 8,000 Ukrainians -- over 1,600 of them civilians -- are in Russian captivity, according to the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

Those numbers are just approximate, however, as the Kremlin refuses to disclose information about penal colonies and other detention centers that hold Ukrainians.

As the war continues, evidence of torture is becoming ubiquitous.

Dubious causes of death

Half of the bodies of deceased Ukrainian service members whom the Russians return from captivity bear signs of torture, said Olena Belyachkova, the coordinator of prisoners' families for the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR).

"There may be numerous bruises and injuries on a body, but some disease will be listed as the cause of death," she told Kontur. "At the start of the invasion, there were isolated cases of this happening, but now we're observing it with every exchange of bodies."

In many cases, service members' bodies come back with severe bruises inflicted both before and after death, but the Russian death certificate will say tuberculosis or heart failure, according to Belyachkova.

"These deaths may stem from beatings or torture, or emaciation of the organism and exhaustion of the functioning of the cardiac muscles, which leads to fatalities," she said.

Belyachkova's organization receives information from families of captives and former prisoners of war.

In talking to them, MIHR confirmed the deaths of 22 Ukrainians in captivity, but relatives report 160 deaths. Formal reviews are under way.

Targeting defenders of Mariupol

A large proportion of the Ukrainians who have been tortured in captivity are marines -- particularly members of the navy's 36th Marine Brigade.

Once the full-scale invasion started in February 2022, the 36th Marine Brigade defended Mariupol until it fell in May 2022. Between March and May 2022, almost 2,000 of its fighters were captured by the Russians.

"Are you with the 36th brigade? That's it then! They couldn't care less; you could be a medic, but they still taunt you, brutally," said Milana Kompaniets, whose son Yurii Hulchuk, a member of the 36th Marine Brigade, is in captivity.

"They get beaten and tortured," she told Kontur. "And they're not allowed to talk to each other. They're forced to stand for 18 hours a day. They even eat standing up."

Kompaniets has brought together some of the families of members of the brigade.

Many captives have ulcerated legs, the result of circulation problems from prolonged standing, she said. Relatives often take note of these ulcers when they receive the bodies of tortured prisoners.

'Gulag' conditions

The worst detention conditions are in the Mordovia penal colony, which is where marines are taken and where the bodies of tortured prisoners are returned from.

"In Mordovia the Kremlin is putting gulags back into operation," Kompaniets said. "The conditions there are brutal. I'd estimate that there are between 800 and 1,200 Ukrainians there. There are also big numbers of civilians there, and that's worst of all."

Kompaniets said her son, who dreamed of becoming a translator, had studied Chinese language and literature and had strong English skills. His family lost contact with him on April 4, 2022.

It turned out that he had been captured. Later, the Russians posted photos of Hulchuk on social networks.

"I was the only one who recognized him. He was so thin, as if he had come out of Auschwitz," Kompaniets said.

Repeated beatings knocked him unconscious for four hours. Because of trauma he sustained in captivity, Hulchuk no longer converses, according to his mother.

"He's stopped talking completely," Kompaniets said, citing reports from other prisoners. "He tries to say something, but his vocal system doesn't respond."

Starvation

A year ago, the media reported on the shocking story of a Ukrainian serviceman named Oleksandr Hrytsiuk, bringing to light the occurrence of malnutrition and death from starvation in captivity.

Before his capture, he was healthy and weighed 110kg. In January 2023, when his body was handed over to his wife, it weighed 50kg.

His head was entirely blue, his nose was dislocated and the nails on his index fingers were gone, his loved ones said.

Anastasia Hondiul, who is advocating for the release of her husband, a member of the Azov brigade, fears a similar fate after she saw him on the TV channel Rossiya 24.

"He was in a room being interviewed. What I saw in the video from the hospital was horrendous," she told Kontur. "My husband was terribly thin -- like he was malnourished. He had the body of a teenager and my husband's head."

The Kremlin is trying to do everything it can to ensure that captives' cause of death is not determined, say rights activists.

The Russians have a scheme for handling bodies in order to hide traces of torture and inhuman detention conditions, say relatives. They hold on to the body until it starts to decompose, when evidence of torture is no longer visible.

"Ukrainian service members who were freed have said that sometimes Russians kill people when they are taken in, or they didn't calculate their strength in the detention process," Belyachkova said.

"They bury those bodies and then return them [later]," she said. "But how can you establish the cause of death if the body was in the ground for a long time?"

Systematic torture

The systematic humiliation, torture and punishment of Ukrainian military personnel in captivity are sanctioned by higher Russian authorities, according to Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament commissioner for human rights.

This system aims to intimidate the Ukrainian population and military personnel, and also serves as a warning to Russian soldiers, he said.

"The Russians are told: look what we're doing to the Ukrainian soldiers. If you get any ideas of surrendering, keep in mind that they'll do the same thing to you," Lubinets said on the television channel FREEDOM on August 21.

At the peace summit in Switzerland in June, Lubinets said that everyone who is in Russian captivity endures systematic torture. Evidence of at least 14,000 such cases exists, he said, according to the Ukrainian presidential office.

Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office has opened more than 450 criminal proceedings on the harsh treatment and torture of prisoners of war and more than 2,100 on the torture of civilians, Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said in June, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.