Larisa Shevandin has not seen her husband Oleh in 11 years. An athlete and president of a local martial arts association in Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine, Oleh was taken in May 2015, after the town had been declared part of the Kremlin-backed “Donetsk People’s Republic.” The couple spoke twice within 24 hours of his arrest and then not again.
Eyewitnesses interviewed by Shevandin say masked, armed men stopped Oleh on the street, pulled him from his car, put a sack over his head and drove off with him. Shevandin researched his disappearance herself and founded the advocacy group Return Home. She says Oleh’s case was raised with the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances.
“Unfortunately, the UN has no way to exert direct influence. So despite their efforts, he remains imprisoned,” Shevandin says. “Eleven years in a Russian prison is a long time. They say every day is hell — but then you have to multiply that by 365, and then by another 11.”
Oleh is listed as a candidate for a prisoner swap but has had no contact, lacks legal representation and is held without formal charges.
Many other Ukrainian civilians detained by Russia have suffered similar fates. Tens of thousands disappeared when Russia launched its full-scale invasion; human rights organizations estimate at least 16,000 Ukrainian non-combatants have been held in Russian prisons. Arbitrary arrests violate international humanitarian law: civilians are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Yurii Kovbasa, a representative of the Ukrainian parliament’s Commissioner for Human Rights, says the Geneva Convention forbids invading another country’s territory and arbitrarily jailing its citizens.
Russia often defends detentions by claiming the arrested resisted the “special military operation,” Mikhail Savva of the Ukraine-based Center for Civil Liberties says. “These people have no legal status at all. Not only is their imprisonment a violation of international law, it’s also a violation of Russian law.” Kovbasa notes another group of detainees whose status is known to the International Committee of the Red Cross; some of these people have been accused of crimes such as terrorism.
Journalist and activist Serhiy Tsyhipa illustrates how ordinary civic life became grounds for detention. After retiring in 2021, Tsyhipa wrote fairy tales about his hometown Nova Kakhovka. When Russian forces occupied the area in early 2022, he stayed to help coordinate humanitarian aid and to report events on social media. He was abducted on March 12, 2022. According to the Russian rights group Memorial, he was held without charges for months and was not indicted for espionage until December 26, 2022; Memorial considers him a political prisoner.
Tsyhipa’s wife, Olena, likens her search for his freedom to looking for the “magic keys” in his stories. She is active with the Civilians in Captivity initiative and says she writes weekly and sends paper for his replies, but last heard from him only in February. She worries letters may not reach him and that his health is deteriorating in cold, damp conditions common in detention.
The UN and rights activists report that Ukrainians held in Russia or in Russian-occupied territories — both prisoners of war and civilians — face systematic abuse and torture. “Torture and mistreatment — our defenders… men and women, soldiers and civilians… they all report it when they return from prison. They all say it happens,” Kovbasa says.
Those most frequently targeted, Savva says, are people involved in civic activities: volunteers, evacuation drivers, and those openly expressing pro-Ukrainian views. Such arrests aim to neutralize potential organizers of resistance and to intimidate the wider population. “You literally demonstrate that the same thing can happen to anybody, that you can just be disappeared,” he explains.
Another case is retired army officer Serhiy Likhomanov, who vanished for nearly two months after armed men raided his apartment in Sevastopol in late 2023. His family later learned he was imprisoned; Russian authorities accuse him of treason and plotting a terror attack. Memorial regards the case as a serious legal violation and suspects political persecution. Likhomanov’s sister, Tetiana Zelena, says he deserves a normal life and that he was likely arrested because he had once been a Ukrainian soldier. Zelena quit her job to campaign full-time for his release and says she will continue fighting for other families seeking freedom for detained loved ones.
Human rights groups, the UN and families of detainees describe a wide pattern: abductions, often by masked armed men; secretive transfers to prisons inside Russia; long periods without legal counsel or family contact; formal charges sometimes brought only months later; and reports of torture and inhumane conditions. Activists and relatives keep searching, raising cases with international bodies, and lobbying for prisoner exchanges — but many detainees remain unaccounted for or held without due process.
This article was translated from German by Jon Shelton.