In a deliberate, widespread campaign, Russian forces systematically targeted influential Ukrainians, nationally and locally, to neutralize resistance through detention, torture and executions, an Associated Press investigation has found.
Russian leaders who had expected to sweep into Ukraine and seize control of a docile population quickly discovered they were wrong. One list begat another as Russia expanded its dragnet to ever-wider swaths of Ukrainian society, incorporating additional names from collaborators and seized government records and torturing captives into giving up other people.
It is not currently possible to document the full scale of abductions. The Center for Civil Liberties, a Ukrainian NGO that won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, has amassed more than 770 cases of civilian captives since Russia’s February invasion. Father and son had set up a code: Call me “Tato” — dad — if everything is OK. Call me “Andrii” if there is trouble.
The soldiers hit Kuprash in the head with a rifle, threw him in the back of the car and drove towards a cemetery in the forest. One of the Russians pulled out a long knife and held it against Kuprash’s throat.They accused him of sending Russian troop positions to Ukrainian authorities, which Kuprash told AP he had been doing. Under the laws of war, Russians could detain spotters like Kuprash in humane conditions, but never disappear or torture them, human rights lawyers say.
Oleksii Dibrovskyi’s journey began on March 25, when a Russian soldier pulled out his gun and held it to his mother’s head.Dibrovskyi, a deputy of the Polohy City Council, in Zaporizhzhia region, looked at his mother and handed over his phone and password. One morning near the end of March, his captors led him to an old Soviet-style metal safe and told him to get in.
When they arrived at Pre-Trial Detention Center Number One, in Kursk, Russia, Dibrovskyi and the others squatted down and folded their hands behind their heads. They were videotaped, searched for tattoos, and stripped. Once naked, the beatings began. Andrei Soldatov, an investigative journalist and expert on Russian security services, said old techniques included kill lists that Stalin’s secret service used to pacify Western Ukraine during World War II.
Data suggests that Russia has been doing the same thing in Ukraine. Regional authorities in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as well as the United Nations all found that local leaders were disproportionately targeted in the early months of the invasion. On the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Jordash got a call from a person with access to British intelligence who warned him that the Russians had lists of Ukrainian politicians and his wife — Svitlana Zalishchuk, a former member of parliament — was not safe. They left.
His wife Olena takes herbal pills to manage the constant anxiety. “I need strength,” she said. “My brain is constantly working on how to help or free him.”Some people who knew they were being hunted went into hiding, conjuring memories of World War II. Others risked everything to slip away. At the last checkpoint before her sister’s home, they were routed to a filtration point where their phones were searched. They were fingerprinted, photographed and questioned for three hours. Lidiia was allowed through. Somehow, they hadn’t noticed she was a journalist.
Lidiia scrambled to gather the paperwork she needed to leave: a certificate that she’d cleared filtration, new identity papers for her children. Each day, she waited for a knock on the door. Lidiia’s head buzzed with panic. “What will happen to my kids if I am detained and cannot leave?” she asked herself. “Should I look for an orphanage for my kids?”
On the morning of April 18, Dibrovskyi was taken from his cell. He said his retinas were scanned and his skull measured with a device he didn’t recognize. Samples were taken of his nails, hair and blood. Around 3 p.m., Dibrovskyi saw a Ukrainian flag. He began to cry. One by one, Russian prisoners were exchanged for Ukrainians.
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