Occupiers took Ukrainian prisoners to 10 correctional facilities in Russia while they were leaving Kherson

During their escape from Kherson Oblast, the occupiers took Ukrainian prisoners to 10 correctional facilities on Russian territory; the total number of prisoners may be 2,500 people.

Source: Syrena publication, Meduza

Quote: "According to human rights activists, the convicts, basically civilians who were illegally deported to the territory of another country, where they did not commit any crimes, are kept separately, and Russians are forbidden to communicate with them."

Details: Ukrainian prisoners’ family members reported that in May, prisoners from correctional facilities in Kherson and Mykolaiv Oblasts started being transferred to Correctional Facility #7 in Stara Zburivka (50 kilometres from Kherson).

Two weeks before Russian troops retreated from Kherson in November, the Russian military began to transfer prisoners to the correctional facility in Russia.

The prisoners’ relatives firstly found out about three Russian correctional facilities in the Krasnodar Territory and Volgograd Oblast, where approximately 2,500 Ukrainian citizens were taken.

Human rights activists have also learned that there were Ukrainian prisoners in Vladimir Oblast.

Syrena published a map showing ten correctional facilities where the prisoners were likely to have been taken. Most of them are located in the Krasnodar Territory. Human rights activists received several reports that in a month they plan to start distributing Ukrainians to other correctional facilities in Russia.

The head of Gulagu.net, Volodymyr Osechkin, reported that Ukrainian prisoners arriving in Russian correctional facilities are treated cruelly; stun guns are used on them. According to him, a special department of the Federal Security Service works with Ukrainians, and they are isolated from Russian prisoners.

Earlier in November, the Agency [news publication] reported that prisoners from penal colonies in the Belgorod and Rostov Oblasts, which are located on the Russian border with Ukraine, began to be transferred to correctional facilities in other Oblasts of Russia.

After the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, the head of the National Police of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko reported that the Russian army released 457 prisoners from the Kherson Pre-trial Detention Centre during the retreat. According to him, by 15 November, 166 of those prisoners were detained.

Background:

• On 15 November, the head of the National Police of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko, announced that the law enforcement officers had returned 166 out of approximately 457 escaped prisoners to the Pre-trial Detention Centre, including those who had been sentenced to life imprisonment.
• On 22 November, a former employee of the Northern Penitentiary No. 90, who released prisoners during the occupation of the city by the Russians in Kherson, was detained and informed of being suspected of a crime.

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