“Unpopular” Ukrainian ex-prisoners fight back from Russian prisons

Copyright AFP Genya SAVILOV

Barbara WOJAZER

Julia's husband was different from most Ukrainians who ended up in the Russian army. As a rule, they were prisoners of war whose fate moved the masses.

He was serving a sentence for assault in a prison in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine when Russian troops took control of the area in 2022.

Before the area was liberated by Ukrainian forces that same year, he was deported by Russian troops within Russia – much to Yulia’s despair and general indifference.

“I was so scared and started crying. How can this happen? Why did they take him? This isn't legal, is it?” said Yulia.

The 32-year-old did not want to give her last name to protect the safety of her husband Yuri, the father of her five-year-old daughter Nastya.

According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice and several non-governmental organizations, more than 3,000 Ukrainian prisoners in eleven penal institutions have fallen into the hands of Russian forces since 2022.

Human rights organizations estimate that about 2,000 of them were brought to Russia.

Russian authorities have released those who have served their sentences – but they face a Kafkaesque road back.

Their stories shed light on the wartime treatment of a population often viewed as outcasts, whose only support comes from their families and grassroots cross-border solidarity.

– “We’ll just shoot you” –

Yulia said that Yuri never spoke about prison conditions in Russia so as not to worry her.

However, former prisoners and NGOs painted a bleak picture.

They witnessed abuse, restricted access to medicine and pressure to accept Russian citizenship.

“They beat us just because we are Ukrainians,” said Yuri Patsura, another prisoner who was imprisoned for theft in the Kherson region.

A report based on over one hundred interviews by the Danish Institute Against Torture and a consortium of non-governmental organizations states the “systematic and widespread nature of physical and psychological torture and other ill-treatment of prisoners”.

The report states that the forcible transfer of civilian prisoners to Russia may constitute a war crime.

“They forced us at gunpoint. The recalcitrants were told: If you resist and do not get into the car that will take you to Russia, we will simply shoot you,” Patsura said.

The Russian Penitentiary Service and Russian human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

– “Everyone be silent” –

Ukrainian Deputy Justice Minister Olena Vysotska acknowledged that the repatriation of common-law offenders had taken a back seat compared to other returnees.

“By priority: children, prisoners of war and civilian prisoners,” said Vysotska.

Last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on suspicion of war crimes related to the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Hanna Skrypka, a lawyer with the non-governmental organization Protection for Prisoners in Ukraine, said she was working on a similar complaint to the ICC to bring justice and attention to the “unpopular” convicts.

She accused the Ukrainian authorities of failing to fulfill their responsibilities towards the prisoners.

“Everyone knows about it and everyone is silent… they have simply closed the matter,” Skrypka said.

She works with her colleague Oleg Tsvily in a small office in Kyiv. Their conversations are constantly interrupted by phone calls from families and former prisoners who need counseling.

– “Nobody for you” –

The six-person NGO has built up a network of volunteers, including in Russia, who are ready to step in immediately if Ukrainian prisoners are released.

Unless they accept a Russian passport, released prisoners face an immediate challenge on their journey: convincing the authorities of their identity.

Many of them remained in custody for weeks, Skrypka said, waiting for documents that would allow their transfer first to Georgia, a neighboring country with close ties to both Russia and Ukraine.

They spend several more weeks in a buffer zone on the border between Russia and Georgia while Ukrainian authorities verify their identities.

“They could confirm their identity and imprison people for their evil deeds. But they could not confirm that they are Ukrainians just so they can return to Ukraine,” Patsura said.

The released convicts are eventually allowed to enter Georgia, where they must again wait for the authorities to issue them travel documents.

Patsura stayed to help his former fellow prisoners in cooperation with the NGO Volunteers Tbilisi.

“It's so hard when no one is there for you, when no one tells you anything,” he said.

– “Like a normal person” –

People serving their sentences in the occupied territories had previously tried to enter Ukrainian-controlled areas through the only open border crossing between Russia and Ukraine, but this is now closed due to Ukraine's invasion of Russia.

After their release, they rely on the help of volunteers.

“They are thrown out of the colony and end up on the street in prison gowns,” says Olga Romanova, who heads the Russian prisoners’ rights organization “Rus Sidyashchaya” from her exile in Berlin.

Romanova said the former prisoners were “without money, often without shoes. The disabled do not even have a wheelchair.”

Anna Pritkova, who spent over two years in a Russian-occupied prison in Melitopol, managed to enter Ukraine before the humanitarian corridor was closed.

She returned to Kyiv railway station on a bright June day after the Prisoner Protection Service of Ukraine sent her documents across the border.

“Now I'm going home to my children,” she told AFP. “I'm going to find work and live like any normal person.”

Many hope for a similar fate.

Julia faces an agonizing wait, as Yuri still has years of his sentence left to serve.

“It's really hard to always wonder what he's going through and hope that everything is OK… If he's even still alive, if they didn't kill him.”