~Russia illegally detains 25,000 Kremlin prisoners

According to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, this is the number of civilians abducted by the Russian Federation.

The ZMINA Human Rights Centre has found that at least 21 prisoners require urgent medical care and may die unless they receive it. 

During the full-scale invasion, the National Police began investigating the enforced disappearance of 8,800 people. Russian Children's Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova claims Russia has illegally abducted over 700,000 children from Ukraine.

The Media Initiative for Human Rights has identified about one hundred places where abducted civilians are held.

The Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Qırım) confirms 209 illegally imprisoned Ukrainian citizens, 126 of whom are Qırımtatarlar.

During the full-scale war, 3,135 Ukrainian citizens were returned to Ukraine, including 150 civilians.

Crimean Solidarity reports.

The Belogorsk district court considered the defence's appeal against the fine and rejected it. This is not the first case of pressure against the Crimean Tatar human rights activist. Previously, he was fined 45,000 rubles for "discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation". There were several attempts to serve him with a warning "about the inadmissibility of violating anti-extremist legislation".

In December 2023, the Belogorsk World Court fined Dzhepparov for administering the Facebook page of the social movement Qırım Gayesi (Crimean Idea) and disseminating "knowingly false socially significant information under the guise of truthful messages".

Lawyers have filed a petition with the court demanding the release of Tofik Abdulhaziiev from prison.

Crimean Solidarity informs.

In addition, the activist was diagnosed with bilateral pneumonia, small left-sided hydrothorax, anaemia, connective tissue dysplasia syndrome with mitral valve disease (heart disease), chronic heart failure and gastritis, and nephrolithiasis (kidney stones).

Tofik Abdulhaziiev's lawyers emphasise that the diagnosed diseases are included in the list of diseases that prevent him from serving his sentence in correctional institutions.

It will be recalled that in May 2022, the Southern District Military Court of Rostov-on-Don sentenced Abdulhaziiev to 12 years in a strict regime penal colony. He is to spend the first five years in prison.

In his words, the prison is very damp and cold, with no ventilation. He and his cellmates drink water from the tap.

Seitosmanov's relatives informed Crimean Solidarity about this.

"He has already been sent twice to the punishment cell (isolation ward for violators of the prison regime - ed.). The first time was in January, five days after he arrived at the prison. The second time was in March, for 15 days for "inter-cell communication".

Ernes Seitosmanov participated in the trials of Crimean Tatars in Crimea (Qırım) and Rostov-on-Don, helped the families of political prisoners and participated in public initiatives. 

He was searched for the last time in February 2022. In 2023, the military court of the Southern District sentenced Ernest Seitosmanov to 18 years in prison for having ties with activists of the Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir. His brother, Enver Seitosmanov, was sentenced to 17 years in a maximum-security penal colony by the same court in 2020.

In November 2023, the Court of Appeal reviewed the verdict against Ernes Seitosmanov and sentenced him to 17 years and six months.

ZMINA Human Rights Center reports.

Asan told his relatives that on April 6, during the inspection, the guards hit his head against the concrete twice after he asked to get his food from the stores. There is video surveillance in the prison. The activist's sister said that "her brother wants to make the recording public to show that he neither resisted nor provoked the prison staff.

After the beating, Asan's head began to hurt badly. Half an hour later, a nurse came to see him. The man showed her the cut on his face and said he had a headache, but she left after examining only his legs.

It will be recalled that on March 27, 2019, Yanikov was arrested on charges of "participation in the Hizb ut-Tahrir organisation, which is banned in Russia and occupied Crimea (Qırım)." On March 18, 2022, the military 'court' of the Southern District sentenced Asan Yanikov to 15 years in a strict regime colony. The Moscow Court of Appeal confirmed the decision.

He allegedly "collected classified information about the Russian armed forces, in particular, created maps of military facilities."

ZMINA Center reports.

The man was abducted in 2017 from Makiivka, which has been under occupation since 2014. Initially, Oleksandr Korol was placed under administrative arrest for 30 days, his wife says. However, the man was not released after that — first, he was suspected of belonging to a terrorist organisation, and later, they added an article on espionage.

He was transferred to a pre-trial detention centre in Donetsk, where he was held for a long time. There, he was tortured into confessing to "working for the Security Service of Ukraine" and "spying for Ukraine". Korol was held in basement cells measuring one and a half by two meters, with two or three people per cell.

His wife, Tetiana, went to the government-controlled territory in Ukraine and managed to get her husband on the exchange list before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But in Russia, Oleksandr Korol's case was referred to the Southern District Court of Russia.

ZMINA Center reports.

The Southern District Military Court opened a second case against Crimean resident Denys Narolskyi for 'high treason'. He faces life imprisonment.

Last year, he was sentenced to nine years for refusing to fight against Ukraine.

On April 11, 2016, Crimean Tatar Arsen Aliiev was abducted in the city of Saki. He was travelling from Bakhchisaray (Bağçasaray) to attend a funeral. He was kidnapped at the bus station in Saki between 12 and 4 p.m. and taken to an unknown destination. Since then, nothing has been known about his fate.

According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, 24 people are considered missing since the occupation, 18 of them are representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people.