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“There should always be someone by her side who can help.” Russia is holding Kateryna Kuzmenko, a seriously ill veteran of the “Aidar” battalion, in custody.
Source: Grati
Author: Anastasia Moskvichova
Every month, a court in Rostov-on-Don hands down dozens of verdicts under “terrorism” charges against Ukrainian prisoners of war and veterans arbitrarily detained in the occupied territories. Specifically, these are people who serve or previously served in the 24th Separate Assault Battalion “Aidar” of the Armed Forces or the 12th Brigade “Azov” of the National Guard of Ukraine. Russia considers both units to be “terrorist organizations” and is thus effectively and unlawfully convicting Ukrainians for serving in the military during the war and undergoing military training. The Russians draft charges in such cases using a similar template, and some of them even contain identical wording.
Some of the defendants in these cases have serious health problems, and their continued detention poses a threat to their lives. In particular, this refers to Kateryna Kuzmenko, who was sentenced in October 2023 to five years in prison.
“Grati” investigated her case and provides the details.
“So you’re asking me: what’s she like? She’s a fighter.”
There has been no word from Kateryna Kuzmenko (Korshik, Standartyuk)—a veteran who previously served in the “Aidar” battalion—since at least March 2024, but was forced to leave the service after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis—a chronic autoimmune disease in which the human immune system mistakenly attacks the nerve sheaths. This disrupts the transmission of nerve impulses and causes disorders of vision, the musculoskeletal system, and other body systems. There is no cure for this disease, but supportive therapy helps control symptoms and slow the progression of the disease, ensuring a normal quality of life for the patient.
Pavlo (our interviewee prefers not to disclose his last name for personal reasons)—a volunteer who has lived and worked in the United Kingdom for many years—shared this story with “Gratam.” According to him, he first met Kateryna online after her demobilization, when veterans’ organizations were raising funds for her treatment. They continued to communicate online afterward but never met in person.
As the “Grat” interviewee noted, Kateryna told him that she had lived with her family in the Luhansk region, but in 2014, after part of the region was occupied by the “LNR” group, they fled to free Ukrainian territory. For some time, she volunteered, and then joined the military as a medic. After being demobilized due to illness, she lived in Vinnytsia for a while, but when her condition worsened, Kateryna told Pavlo that she had decided to move to Novoaydar in the Luhansk region—where her mother, her stepfather (who is also a veteran), and her younger brother lived there.
“When she suffered from these symptoms, she would sometimes lose consciousness, and her limbs would go numb—in other words, she became someone who needed round-the-clock care. There always had to be someone else with her who could help her in her condition. And when her condition improved, she even thought about getting a job. So you’re asking me: what’s she like? She’s a fighter. She used to tell me, too: ‘I’m a fighter; I’ll see it through to the end. Once I set my mind to something, I won’t give up,’” says Pavlo.
On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, rapidly advancing through the Luhansk region. In March 2022, Novoaydar came under occupation, and Kateryna and her stepfather came under the scrutiny of Russian security forces.
Photo in uniform and the “Volunteer’s Knight’s Cross”
On May 22, 2022, Lieutenant Colonel A. S. Denisenko, a criminal investigator with the “Ministry of State Security” of the “LPR” group, signed a ruling on a preventive measure (“Grati” reviewed a copy of the document) against Kateryna Korshik—the surname Kuzmenko she was using at the time—in the form of a pledge not to leave the Russian-occupied part of Luhansk Oblast (this precautionary measure remained in effect until the verdict). A case was brought against her regarding her alleged participation in a terrorist organization.
In 2016, the “DPR” and “LPR” groups designated the 24th Separate Assault Battalion “Aidar” as such. Russia did so in 2023 following a ruling by the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, after it announced the annexation of previously occupied territories that had been under the control of the aforementioned groups. The Korshik case was heard by a panel of judges consisting of Kirill Kryvtsov (presiding), Gurgen Dovlatbekyan, and Alexei Magomadov at the Southern District Military Court. The verdict was handed down on October 6, 2023 (a copy of the document is available to “Grat”).
As noted in the court’s verdict, Kateryna Korshik joined the “Aidar” battalion on August 17, 2015, “for mercenary motives,” that is, hoping for a salary and social benefits. The Russians used the exact same wording—word for word—in the case of Viktoria Tkachenko, a soldier from the “Aidar” battalion, who was also arbitrarily detained in the occupied territory while she was on maternity leave with her young daughter. Despite the different circumstances of these two women’s lives and service, they were tried on identical charges, clearly drafted from the same template.
After signing her contract, Kateryna served as a medic near the villages of Stepne and Novotoretske in the Donetsk region. On February 7, 2017, the battalion leadership terminated her contract due to a serious illness that made her military service impossible. Russian judges ruled that this occurred “due to circumstances beyond her control” and that Kateryna was allegedly aware of the “terrorist” nature of the battalion’s activities.
According to the court’s ruling, Kateryna Korshik confirmed the circumstances outlined in her case. Her stepfather also confirmed that, like Kateryna, he had served in the “Aidar” battalion for some time. In addition to him, Kateryna’s mother and a “witness named Chernyshov” testified in court. The latter is identified as a resident of the village of Novoaydar in Luhansk Oblast who saw Korshik and her stepfather in military uniforms bearing the “Aidar” insignia. Investigators from the “LNR” group also allegedly found photos of her in uniform and certain documents—including one awarding her the “Volunteer’s Knight’s Cross”—on the woman’s laptop, which they seized during a search of her home.
The document contains no information whatsoever about Kateryna Korshik committing any acts of violence against anyone or other crimes, even under Russian law, other than the fact that she served in the “Aidar” battalion for a year and a half.
International humanitarian law grants military personnel the status of combatants, which provides immunity from prosecution solely for participation in hostilities, provided they have not committed war crimes. Once they fall under the control of an enemy state, they become prisoners of war. Russia systematically ignores this requirement.
“Neo-Nazi ideology, according to which Russia is an enemy state”
In the context of justifying why “Aidar” should be considered a terrorist organization, the Rostov court notes that it reviewed a number of documentary films and also questioned Maxim Vaskov, a professor in the Department of Foreign History at Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don. Vaskov noted that “Aidar” was formed by the most active participants in the Maidan in 2014, that the battalion took part in the ATO in the Luhansk region, and that it engaged in activities with a “strongly anti-Russian orientation.”
“The battalion’s members adhere to a neo-Nazi ideology, according to which Russia is an enemy state, and its citizens are portrayed as second-class people, justifying the use of violence against them,” the document states, without specifying what these Russian citizens were doing in the Luhansk region at that time.
In the verdict, the judges also cite reports from UN and OSCE monitoring groups, as well as from the international organization Amnesty International, regarding alleged crimes committed by battalion fighters in 2014–2016, and refer to verdicts handed down by Ukrainian courts concerning these cases, but no specific examples of cases or names of courts are provided. Nor is the response of the Ukrainian law enforcement system to these reports—in particular, the criminal proceedings that were initiated—reflected or taken into account in any way.
According to the Russian judges, Kateryna Korshik allegedly knew all of this but signed the military service contract anyway.
A separate episode is highlighted (and this is also typical of several cases involving Aidar battalion members), namely, that the Aidar Battalion’s Telegram channel published a post expressing approval of the explosion on the Crimean Bridge, which Russia used to connect the peninsula it occupies to the Russian mainland.
The post is dated August 2023—meaning that by that time, more than six years had passed since Korshik left the army.
Five Years in Prison
On October 6, 2023, the Southern District Military Court of Rostov-on-Don found Kateryna Kuzmenko (Korshik) guilty of participating in a terrorist organization under Part 2 of Article 205.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and sentenced her to 5 years of imprisonment in a penal colony. In the document, she is listed as a Russian citizen.
In January 2024, Appeals Court Judge Marina Ushakova upheld the sentence.
Kateryna was to serve her sentence at the Seleznevskaya Women’s Colony in the Russian-occupied part of Luhansk Oblast, beginning on March 29, 2024.
According to Russian open sources, this colony has been considered dissolved since August 5, 2025. At the same time, as representatives of the Ukrainian human rights organization “Come On, Sisters”—which represents the interests of former Kremlin captives and advocates for the release of all women captured by Russia—told “Gratam,” as of December of this year, this prison is still operating, and Ukrainian women are still being held there. Seleznevka is also on the list of penal colonies in the Luhansk region that are part of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service system.
In general, according to reports in the Russian media, the reduction in the number of prisons and pretrial detention centers has been a trend in Russia in recent years, especially since the start of its large-scale invasion of Ukraine and the mass conscription of convicts into the military. The BBC’s Russian Service and the publication “Vazhnye Istorii” have reported on this, among others. The latter noted, citing the Russian initiative “Open Space,” which monitors trends in this phenomenon, that as of July of this year, 90 Russian correctional facilities had filed applications for liquidation. However, data from the initiative’s Telegram channel does not indicate that it also counts facilities in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine (Seleznevka is not mentioned in the report for the third quarter of 2024).
On the contrary, in January 2023, the Russian government decided to establish 25 new correctional facilities in the occupied parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. It is also known that at least two new pretrial detention centers have been established in occupied Crimea since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
It is not known for certain where Kateryna Kuzmenko is currently being held. At the same time, as one of the individuals released from Russian captivity told “Gratam,” there is information that she is still being held in one of the penal colonies in the Luhansk region and is hoping for a pardon due to her health condition.
“This Is Revenge for Her Resilience”
In October of this year, the Russian Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don handed down a verdict in the case of 15 Ukrainian prisoners of war from the “Aidar” battalion, sentencing them to prison terms ranging from 15 to 21 years. The individuals in question are Roman Nedostup, Vitaliy Gruzinov, Serhiy Kalynchenko, Mykola Chupryna, Taras Radchenko, Serhiy Nikitiuk, Semen Zabayrachny, Oleksandr Tarants, Vladyslav Yermolinsky, Volodymyr Makarenko, and Ihor Hayokha. They were charged with the violent seizure of power under Article 278 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, participation in a terrorist organization under Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and undergoing training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities under Article 205.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Andriy Sholik, Vitaliy Krokhalov, Vyacheslav Bayduk, and Dmytro Fedchenko were also convicted (they were tried on the first two charges). All of the convicted men were taken prisoner by Russian forces in early March 2022 during fighting for the village of Granitne in the Donetsk region.
In 2024, the prisoners were able to send a letter to the outside world in which they reported the torture they had endured in Donetsk.
In response to the Russian court’s verdict, the 24th Separate Assault Battalion “Aidar” called on the international community via its official Telegram channel to respond to such cases and “give a voice to Ukrainian prisoners of war.”
“These ‘trials’ are a farce, torture is standard practice for the enemy, and these verdicts are yet another proof of the terror Russia is inflicting on Ukrainians. The world must know: this is not justice. This is revenge for our resilience,” the statement reads.
According to the Russian human rights organization “Memorial,” there are currently dozens of criminal cases in which Russia is attempting to prosecute Ukrainian citizens for serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, particularly in the “Azov” and “Aidar” battalions, charging them under “terrorism” articles, and this number is growing rapidly. According to human rights activists, in November of this year alone, about 20 such cases were referred to the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, and roughly the same number of verdicts were handed down against the defendants. In October, there were more than 30 new “terrorism” cases in Rostov—which the organization considers a record high for the period it has been monitoring—and 29 convictions. In September, “Memorial” documented 26 cases referred to court under these articles and noted that, in total, there had already been about 400 such cases since the beginning of 2023.
These cases involve active-duty military personnel taken prisoner, as well as veterans who, like Kateryna Kuzmenko, served in the Ukrainian military several years ago, and civilians whom Russia abducts from the territories it occupies and subsequently accuses of collaborating with the Ukrainian armed forces or intelligence services. There are also cases where the defendants are being tried in absentia.
At the same time, as documented by Ukrainian human rights defenders and experts from the OSCE Moscow Mechanism, Russia systematically deprives prisoners of war from Ukraine of their right to a fair trial: the accused are largely unable to choose and hire an independent lawyer, Russia ignores the presumption of innocence, fabricates evidence and witness testimony, and forces defendants under torture to confess to crimes they did not commit or to testify against others. Many court hearings are held behind closed doors, and verdicts are often removed from official websites or not published at all. These practices bear the hallmarks of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
This material was prepared with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. It represents the authors’ views and does not necessarily reflect the position of the International Renaissance Foundation.
Author: Anastasia Moskvichova
Every month, a court in Rostov-on-Don hands down dozens of verdicts under “terrorism” charges against Ukrainian prisoners of war and veterans arbitrarily detained in the occupied territories. Specifically, these are people who serve or previously served in the 24th Separate Assault Battalion “Aidar” of the Armed Forces or the 12th Brigade “Azov” of the National Guard of Ukraine. Russia considers both units to be “terrorist organizations” and is thus effectively and unlawfully convicting Ukrainians for serving in the military during the war and undergoing military training. The Russians draft charges in such cases using a similar template, and some of them even contain identical wording.
Some of the defendants in these cases have serious health problems, and their continued detention poses a threat to their lives. In particular, this refers to Kateryna Kuzmenko, who was sentenced in October 2023 to five years in prison.
“Grati” investigated her case and provides the details.
“So you’re asking me: what’s she like? She’s a fighter.”
There has been no word from Kateryna Kuzmenko (Korshik, Standartyuk)—a veteran who previously served in the “Aidar” battalion—since at least March 2024, but was forced to leave the service after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis—a chronic autoimmune disease in which the human immune system mistakenly attacks the nerve sheaths. This disrupts the transmission of nerve impulses and causes disorders of vision, the musculoskeletal system, and other body systems. There is no cure for this disease, but supportive therapy helps control symptoms and slow the progression of the disease, ensuring a normal quality of life for the patient.
Pavlo (our interviewee prefers not to disclose his last name for personal reasons)—a volunteer who has lived and worked in the United Kingdom for many years—shared this story with “Gratam.” According to him, he first met Kateryna online after her demobilization, when veterans’ organizations were raising funds for her treatment. They continued to communicate online afterward but never met in person.
As the “Grat” interviewee noted, Kateryna told him that she had lived with her family in the Luhansk region, but in 2014, after part of the region was occupied by the “LNR” group, they fled to free Ukrainian territory. For some time, she volunteered, and then joined the military as a medic. After being demobilized due to illness, she lived in Vinnytsia for a while, but when her condition worsened, Kateryna told Pavlo that she had decided to move to Novoaydar in the Luhansk region—where her mother, her stepfather (who is also a veteran), and her younger brother lived there.
“When she suffered from these symptoms, she would sometimes lose consciousness, and her limbs would go numb—in other words, she became someone who needed round-the-clock care. There always had to be someone else with her who could help her in her condition. And when her condition improved, she even thought about getting a job. So you’re asking me: what’s she like? She’s a fighter. She used to tell me, too: ‘I’m a fighter; I’ll see it through to the end. Once I set my mind to something, I won’t give up,’” says Pavlo.
On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, rapidly advancing through the Luhansk region. In March 2022, Novoaydar came under occupation, and Kateryna and her stepfather came under the scrutiny of Russian security forces.
Photo in uniform and the “Volunteer’s Knight’s Cross”
On May 22, 2022, Lieutenant Colonel A. S. Denisenko, a criminal investigator with the “Ministry of State Security” of the “LPR” group, signed a ruling on a preventive measure (“Grati” reviewed a copy of the document) against Kateryna Korshik—the surname Kuzmenko she was using at the time—in the form of a pledge not to leave the Russian-occupied part of Luhansk Oblast (this precautionary measure remained in effect until the verdict). A case was brought against her regarding her alleged participation in a terrorist organization.
In 2016, the “DPR” and “LPR” groups designated the 24th Separate Assault Battalion “Aidar” as such. Russia did so in 2023 following a ruling by the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, after it announced the annexation of previously occupied territories that had been under the control of the aforementioned groups. The Korshik case was heard by a panel of judges consisting of Kirill Kryvtsov (presiding), Gurgen Dovlatbekyan, and Alexei Magomadov at the Southern District Military Court. The verdict was handed down on October 6, 2023 (a copy of the document is available to “Grat”).
As noted in the court’s verdict, Kateryna Korshik joined the “Aidar” battalion on August 17, 2015, “for mercenary motives,” that is, hoping for a salary and social benefits. The Russians used the exact same wording—word for word—in the case of Viktoria Tkachenko, a soldier from the “Aidar” battalion, who was also arbitrarily detained in the occupied territory while she was on maternity leave with her young daughter. Despite the different circumstances of these two women’s lives and service, they were tried on identical charges, clearly drafted from the same template.
After signing her contract, Kateryna served as a medic near the villages of Stepne and Novotoretske in the Donetsk region. On February 7, 2017, the battalion leadership terminated her contract due to a serious illness that made her military service impossible. Russian judges ruled that this occurred “due to circumstances beyond her control” and that Kateryna was allegedly aware of the “terrorist” nature of the battalion’s activities.
According to the court’s ruling, Kateryna Korshik confirmed the circumstances outlined in her case. Her stepfather also confirmed that, like Kateryna, he had served in the “Aidar” battalion for some time. In addition to him, Kateryna’s mother and a “witness named Chernyshov” testified in court. The latter is identified as a resident of the village of Novoaydar in Luhansk Oblast who saw Korshik and her stepfather in military uniforms bearing the “Aidar” insignia. Investigators from the “LNR” group also allegedly found photos of her in uniform and certain documents—including one awarding her the “Volunteer’s Knight’s Cross”—on the woman’s laptop, which they seized during a search of her home.
The document contains no information whatsoever about Kateryna Korshik committing any acts of violence against anyone or other crimes, even under Russian law, other than the fact that she served in the “Aidar” battalion for a year and a half.
International humanitarian law grants military personnel the status of combatants, which provides immunity from prosecution solely for participation in hostilities, provided they have not committed war crimes. Once they fall under the control of an enemy state, they become prisoners of war. Russia systematically ignores this requirement.
“Neo-Nazi ideology, according to which Russia is an enemy state”
In the context of justifying why “Aidar” should be considered a terrorist organization, the Rostov court notes that it reviewed a number of documentary films and also questioned Maxim Vaskov, a professor in the Department of Foreign History at Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don. Vaskov noted that “Aidar” was formed by the most active participants in the Maidan in 2014, that the battalion took part in the ATO in the Luhansk region, and that it engaged in activities with a “strongly anti-Russian orientation.”
“The battalion’s members adhere to a neo-Nazi ideology, according to which Russia is an enemy state, and its citizens are portrayed as second-class people, justifying the use of violence against them,” the document states, without specifying what these Russian citizens were doing in the Luhansk region at that time.
In the verdict, the judges also cite reports from UN and OSCE monitoring groups, as well as from the international organization Amnesty International, regarding alleged crimes committed by battalion fighters in 2014–2016, and refer to verdicts handed down by Ukrainian courts concerning these cases, but no specific examples of cases or names of courts are provided. Nor is the response of the Ukrainian law enforcement system to these reports—in particular, the criminal proceedings that were initiated—reflected or taken into account in any way.
According to the Russian judges, Kateryna Korshik allegedly knew all of this but signed the military service contract anyway.
A separate episode is highlighted (and this is also typical of several cases involving Aidar battalion members), namely, that the Aidar Battalion’s Telegram channel published a post expressing approval of the explosion on the Crimean Bridge, which Russia used to connect the peninsula it occupies to the Russian mainland.
The post is dated August 2023—meaning that by that time, more than six years had passed since Korshik left the army.
Five Years in Prison
On October 6, 2023, the Southern District Military Court of Rostov-on-Don found Kateryna Kuzmenko (Korshik) guilty of participating in a terrorist organization under Part 2 of Article 205.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and sentenced her to 5 years of imprisonment in a penal colony. In the document, she is listed as a Russian citizen.
In January 2024, Appeals Court Judge Marina Ushakova upheld the sentence.
Kateryna was to serve her sentence at the Seleznevskaya Women’s Colony in the Russian-occupied part of Luhansk Oblast, beginning on March 29, 2024.
According to Russian open sources, this colony has been considered dissolved since August 5, 2025. At the same time, as representatives of the Ukrainian human rights organization “Come On, Sisters”—which represents the interests of former Kremlin captives and advocates for the release of all women captured by Russia—told “Gratam,” as of December of this year, this prison is still operating, and Ukrainian women are still being held there. Seleznevka is also on the list of penal colonies in the Luhansk region that are part of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service system.
In general, according to reports in the Russian media, the reduction in the number of prisons and pretrial detention centers has been a trend in Russia in recent years, especially since the start of its large-scale invasion of Ukraine and the mass conscription of convicts into the military. The BBC’s Russian Service and the publication “Vazhnye Istorii” have reported on this, among others. The latter noted, citing the Russian initiative “Open Space,” which monitors trends in this phenomenon, that as of July of this year, 90 Russian correctional facilities had filed applications for liquidation. However, data from the initiative’s Telegram channel does not indicate that it also counts facilities in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine (Seleznevka is not mentioned in the report for the third quarter of 2024).
On the contrary, in January 2023, the Russian government decided to establish 25 new correctional facilities in the occupied parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. It is also known that at least two new pretrial detention centers have been established in occupied Crimea since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
It is not known for certain where Kateryna Kuzmenko is currently being held. At the same time, as one of the individuals released from Russian captivity told “Gratam,” there is information that she is still being held in one of the penal colonies in the Luhansk region and is hoping for a pardon due to her health condition.
“This Is Revenge for Her Resilience”
In October of this year, the Russian Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don handed down a verdict in the case of 15 Ukrainian prisoners of war from the “Aidar” battalion, sentencing them to prison terms ranging from 15 to 21 years. The individuals in question are Roman Nedostup, Vitaliy Gruzinov, Serhiy Kalynchenko, Mykola Chupryna, Taras Radchenko, Serhiy Nikitiuk, Semen Zabayrachny, Oleksandr Tarants, Vladyslav Yermolinsky, Volodymyr Makarenko, and Ihor Hayokha. They were charged with the violent seizure of power under Article 278 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, participation in a terrorist organization under Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and undergoing training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities under Article 205.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Andriy Sholik, Vitaliy Krokhalov, Vyacheslav Bayduk, and Dmytro Fedchenko were also convicted (they were tried on the first two charges). All of the convicted men were taken prisoner by Russian forces in early March 2022 during fighting for the village of Granitne in the Donetsk region.
In 2024, the prisoners were able to send a letter to the outside world in which they reported the torture they had endured in Donetsk.
In response to the Russian court’s verdict, the 24th Separate Assault Battalion “Aidar” called on the international community via its official Telegram channel to respond to such cases and “give a voice to Ukrainian prisoners of war.”
“These ‘trials’ are a farce, torture is standard practice for the enemy, and these verdicts are yet another proof of the terror Russia is inflicting on Ukrainians. The world must know: this is not justice. This is revenge for our resilience,” the statement reads.
According to the Russian human rights organization “Memorial,” there are currently dozens of criminal cases in which Russia is attempting to prosecute Ukrainian citizens for serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, particularly in the “Azov” and “Aidar” battalions, charging them under “terrorism” articles, and this number is growing rapidly. According to human rights activists, in November of this year alone, about 20 such cases were referred to the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, and roughly the same number of verdicts were handed down against the defendants. In October, there were more than 30 new “terrorism” cases in Rostov—which the organization considers a record high for the period it has been monitoring—and 29 convictions. In September, “Memorial” documented 26 cases referred to court under these articles and noted that, in total, there had already been about 400 such cases since the beginning of 2023.
These cases involve active-duty military personnel taken prisoner, as well as veterans who, like Kateryna Kuzmenko, served in the Ukrainian military several years ago, and civilians whom Russia abducts from the territories it occupies and subsequently accuses of collaborating with the Ukrainian armed forces or intelligence services. There are also cases where the defendants are being tried in absentia.
At the same time, as documented by Ukrainian human rights defenders and experts from the OSCE Moscow Mechanism, Russia systematically deprives prisoners of war from Ukraine of their right to a fair trial: the accused are largely unable to choose and hire an independent lawyer, Russia ignores the presumption of innocence, fabricates evidence and witness testimony, and forces defendants under torture to confess to crimes they did not commit or to testify against others. Many court hearings are held behind closed doors, and verdicts are often removed from official websites or not published at all. These practices bear the hallmarks of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
This material was prepared with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. It represents the authors’ views and does not necessarily reflect the position of the International Renaissance Foundation.
This is an automatic translation generated by DeepL.