“Nine Circles of Hell”

Following the invasion of Ukraine by Russian armed forces in February 2022, 11 facilities — three pre-trial detention centres and eight prisons — located in the non-government-controlled areas (NGCAs) and holding 3,103 prisoners were not evacuated. Prison staff and prisoners were left under Russian occupation without clear guidance from Ukrainian authorities. The Russian Federation became responsible, under international humanitarian law, for the treatment of prisoners and conditions in those 11 detention facilities. Supply of water, electricity and heating were regularly interrupted. Supply chains of food, medicine and other necessities were severed. The inadequate access to showers was compounded by the overall unhygienic detention conditions.

Prison overcrowding was also apparent. For instance, a living unit with 100 spots housed roughly 500 persons in Hola Prystan Colony no. 7. No plan for a continuity of services was established. Prisons had to operate relying on local volunteers and organisations, requesting other state institutions to share their stocks, such as medication from local hospitals, or even using their own personal resources. In addition, many staff members, sometimes up to 80%, resigned for safety purposes or unwillingness to collaborate with the occupying forces. New employees wearing military uniforms without name tags were recruited to replace them.

Some prisons were turned into ammunition depots and garages for armed vehicles. In three cases, missile launchers were reportedly placed nearby, effectively turning the prisons into shields, resulting in many being targeted and damaged by artillery fire, damaging infrastructure, and causing injuries and deaths among prison staff and prisoners. The sounds of artillery were so frequent in some prisons that prisoners felt anxious when they stopped.

Many prisoners were transferred without consent, or knowledge of their fate and whereabouts, to other prisons in the NGCAs or in Russia. These transfers constitute enforced disappearances and violate international law.

Human rights violations and international crimes against the prisoners committed by Russian military and former Ukrainian prison staff collaborating with the occupying forces were reported: wilful killings and torture, forced labour, forced imposition of Russian citizenship, and forced participation in the illegal referenda on Russian annexation of the NGCAs.

Forced labour was embedded to support the Russian military efforts through digging trenches, producing fortifications, and piling sandbags, as well as through technical repairs and industrial factory work such as milling timber and making barbed wire. Russian military officers and the private military company Wagner tried to coerce prisoners to join their ranks. Those who refused were punished, and others signed up to stop the relentless beatings and with the intention of surrendering to Ukrainian forces.

Based on documented instances of torture and other ill-treatment in places of detention, the Russian military and other officials used physical and psychological torture as a tool to intimidate prisoners, obtain information and extract confessions, or punish pro-Ukraine rhetoric. The methods of torture included kicks, blows, slaps, beatings with truncheons, hooding, positional torture, electric shocks, and mock executions.

Perpetrators have often deliberately concealed their identity, making it difficult to identify them. Officials would beat prisoners simply because they did not like the way they spoke, an answer they gave, or if a prisoner expressed dissatisfaction with their living conditions. Prisoners could also be subject to random or collective punishments and torture. Prisoners with tattoos indicating prison gang affiliation were specifically targeted and subjected to torture in order to break down the underlying social hierarchies and leadership systems inherently opposed to the administration of prisons. In tandem, informal prison leaders were also designated with the aim of pressuring prisoners to submit to Russian forces. Russian servicemen also reportedly killed prisoners under false pretences of suppressing riots. In reality, the killings were rather an effort to establish an atmosphere of fear to ensure that prisoners were compliant.