How civilians ended up in Russian captivity and how to free them

The Russian army in the occupied territories of Ukraine deprived thousands of civilians of their freedom. How are relatives looking for them and why is it difficult to free them?

"Everyone just says: we have to wait, we have to wait. I've been waiting for a year. Imagine what it's like to wait for them - in captivity, the conditions, to put it mildly, are not the best," Anton Čirkov points to the spacious living room.
Several women have already gathered at the dark wood table, Anton sits at the head, in his father's chair - in size and carving, it looks more like a throne. Father Aleksandr Chirkov made furniture and other decorations himself - working with wood was the favorite hobby of the 49-year-old funeral company owner.
The Chirkov estate is located 30 kilometers north of the capital, a comfortable cottage on the banks of the Kiev Reservoir, it is part of the community of the Dimer settlement. The Russian army occupied it on February 25, 2022, advancing through the Chernobyl zone, was stopped only at Vyshgorod, and was stopped only at the end of March.

"Great conditions"

"Occupation is a special test. A man reveals his best and worst qualities," says Tetjana Bogaevska about her 40-year-old son, "Dima, like a normal man, took responsibility for his neighbors, for our village."
For the first three weeks, Dmytro Bogaevski and Aleksandr Chirkov tried to maintain order in the city, which suffered without communication and electricity. Neighbors constantly gathered around the well in the Chirk family's yard - perhaps that's why the Russians mistook their father for a resistance leader, suggests Anton. They probably made lists in advance - because when they arrived on March 16, they first asked for weapons.
"Well, here, every second resident has a rifle, we had three in the safe. The army looked and left. And the next morning 20 people arrived in a combat vehicle, they took away the weapons and told my father to gather," says Chirkov, the younger, who has not seen him since.

Dmitro Bogaevski was also taken from the neighboring house that morning. His parents were in Dimer at that time. After learning about her son's disappearance, Tetjana ran to the village council, where she asked for several days where exactly he was being held.
"A soldier once told me: don't worry, Bogajevski and Čirkov are in excellent conditions. I ask: can I stay in a bad place and at home?"
The prisoners were taken to the industrial zone in the south of Dimer - a room that the locals call the foundry. There, about 40 people were held in a room half the size of the Čirks' living room - all accused of "opposing a special military operation". Someone was taken out to dig trenches, some had their hands and eyes tied, they were beaten and questioned about the movements of the resistance forces. Some were released, and some were transported to the airport in Gostomel, where large industrial refrigerators were turned into cells. This is how, for example, the Khiljuk family was divided, which was arrested together on March 3 in Kozaroviči. Vasilije's father was released after seven days, and there is still no contact with 48-year-old UNIAN news agency correspondent Dmitr Khiljuk.
But all this will become known to the relatives later, after the liberation of the Kiev region. On March 28, the Russians left the industrial zone, fleeing Ukrainian shelling. The last twenty prisoners were simply left behind.
"When we realized that Dima was not among them, my husband and I hurried to look for him in all the forests, ravines and abandoned buildings", recalls Tetjana Bogaevska.

Volodymyr Kropun, a Red Cross volunteer who was freed during the exchange on April 9, brought information about their loved ones to the citizens of Dimer: retreating, the Russian army took dozens of Ukrainian civilians with them, first to Belarus, and then to the Bryansk region of the Russian Federation, for investigation prison in the city of Novozibkiv.
By the end of spring, several more prisoners had left this prison, they were looking for relatives of their neighbors and told them about the situation. On April 14, the prison administration ordered the Ukrainians to write letters home. However, they will be submitted through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) already in September. In short, just standard: congratulations, alive, healthy. "My Dima didn't even write that he was healthy," complains Tatjana Bogaevska.

In prisons across Russia

After learning about the whereabouts of their loved ones, the people of Dimer rushed to write to Russian prisons, the army command, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB - just to find out what it would take to free them.
"No one got any answers, then they tried to act collectively," Bogaevska opens a list with data of 42 missing persons and their relatives - the initiative group of the Dimer community.
   Six of them have not yet been found. The vast majority of the rest remain in Novozibkiv, where in total, according to available data, there are more than 600 Ukrainians: civilians and military. However, the management of the investigation center did not officially confirm the names of the prisoners to their relatives, neither representatives of the ICRC, nor lawyers ever visited the prison during the year.

"Our main source of information are prisoners of war who have been exchanged. Sometimes they send short letters, sometimes they keep lists of dozens of cellmates in their heads", Karina Diačuk, co-founder of the non-governmental organization "Civilians in captivity", which gathers relatives of prisoners, which is registered in In December, she told DW that there are more than 350 prisoners from six regions.
Human rights activists from the "Media Initiative for Human Rights" managed to identify by name about 950 civilians detained in the Russian Federation in April, the Ministry of Reintegration said about the same number in February, citing data from the National Information Bureau - Search for Prisoners.
Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets claims that Russia has detained more than 20,000 peaceful citizens of Ukraine - including those detained in Crimea, in the self-proclaimed "republics" and still occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. Some of them are being prosecuted under Russian criminal law, accused of writing about espionage or terrorist activities, lawyer Emil Kurbedinov, a defense attorney for Crimean Tatar activists and Ukrainian sailors captured in 2018, told DW.
However, Russian security forces keep many civilians in prisons without any explanation, Kurbedinov continues, citing the example of Irina Horobtsova from Kherson. The 38-year-old engineer, who participated in the protests in the first months of the occupation of Kherson, was arrested in May 2022 in her parents' apartment and soon after was sent to the remand prison in Simferopol, where she was kept in solitary confinement for three months without any contact with the outside world.

In August alone, relatives received two short messages from Horobcova via the prison's email system. At the same time, Kurbedinov received a response from the Russian correctional service: the woman from Kherson was detained for opposing a "special military operation", and the decision on further release or punishment will be made after the proceedings are over. The lawyer disputes the actions of the Russian security forces and jailers and requests a meeting with Horobcova.

Disputed status

Ukrainian authorities call the detention of civilians in territories occupied by the Russian Federation illegal, and law enforcement officials are investigating their abduction as a war crime. However, the April report of the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch states: The Fourth Geneva Convention allows the internment or forced settlement of civilians in a certain territory only "when it is absolutely necessary to ensure the safety of detainees." However, such citizens should have access to a lawyer and family members, as well as the right to challenge the grounds for detention. Detained Ukrainians are deprived of all this, says Karina Diachuk from "Civilians in captivity".
Last winter, Russia began registering Ukrainian civilians as prisoners of war. Tetyana Bogaevska says that in January, her son Dmytro's card with this status first appeared on the Russian website "Nemesis" - an unofficial source that publishes personal data of Ukrainian military and security forces. Other residents of Dimer were designated as prisoners of war: DW was able to find records of "Nemesis", Dmytro Hiljuk and Aleksandr Chirkov. Anton Čirkov also sent DW a snapshot of his father's card from the database of the National Information Bureau, where he is listed as a conscript on the basis of the Russian list sent through the ICRC.
However, the spokesman of the Red Cross in Ukraine, Aleksandr Vlasenko, explains that the detention of prisoners of war and civilians is regulated by different Geneva Conventions, so different norms of international humanitarian law apply to them. "Perhaps there will be cases where civilians will also receive the status of combatants, and accordingly in the case of capture - prisoners of war. This will happen if, in order to resist the occupation, they take up arms, organize themselves into partisan units, and wear uniforms that distinguish them from the civilian population" - says Vlasenko.

The Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters, which deals with the exchange of prisoners of war, does not agree with this comparison.
"At the meetings, they explain to us that there are no mechanisms for the exchange of civilians, Russia must release them without any conditions, without any exchanges. And the headquarters is ready to exchange captured Russians only for military personnel. And that is understandable, because if you start exchanging civilians for military personnel , then the entire population of the occupied territory will turn into hostages," admits Karina Diačuk.

Who to exchange?

In addition, 140 Ukrainian civilians, including her father, have been freed in exchanges since last February.
"If someone is released, it is extremely rare - one or two civilians for every hundred soldiers," complains Anton Chirkov.
The coordination headquarters does not disclose the detailed terms of such an exchange.
"Our civilians are being held hostage in the Russian Federation in order to force Ukraine to engage in political negotiations. There will be no negotiations. But negotiations on the transfer of civilians from the place of return are ongoing," said Staff representative Aleksandr Kononenko, whose words were quoted in the latest the report on the meeting with "Civilians in captivity".
The office of Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmitri Lubinets is also looking for ways to free Ukrainian civilians detained by Russia. At the beginning of the year, during a meeting in Ankara with the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation Tetyana Moskalkova, Lubinets proposed the repatriation of old people, women, the wounded and the seriously ill, but Russia never responded to this proposal.
In the end, the ombudsmen of the two countries managed to agree on at least the first monitoring visits to imprisoned civilians - at the end of April, the Russian side visited 17 Ukrainian prisoners in the Luhansk region, and employees of the Office of the Ukrainian Commissioner visited the same number of Russian prisoners.

"We hope that the started practice will lead to the unblocking of the procedure for the release of civilian hostages and convicted persons," Dmitro Lubinec said in this regard.
Meanwhile, relatives of peaceful citizens imprisoned in the Russian Federation themselves offer options for the release of their loved ones.
"At the last meeting at the Coordination Headquarters, we talked about the fact that civilians can be exchanged for civilians - Karina Diačuk told DW. - There are Moscow priests (UPC MP priests - Ed.) who are accused of collaborationism - Russia is interested in their release. There is Boguslaev (chairman of the Motor Sich administration, accused of treason. - Ed.) who offered himself for exchange. Let's explore different options."