News
Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians taken from areas briefly occupied by Russian forces in 2022 remain imprisoned without trial. Not a single one of them has been brought before a court. The charges against them are not even stipulated in the Russian criminal code. They receive no letters or care packages, and they have no access to legal representation. Their families often learn of their whereabouts only from prisoners of war released during exchanges.
4 April 2025
In the three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian law enforcement has documented over 150,000 war crimes. These crimes occurred wherever the Russian military has set foot. The staggering scale suggests Russia’s coordinated intent and policy aimed at the destruction of Ukraine as a nation. Yet the national justice system paints a different picture. Ukrainian courts have not been able to reflect the true scope of Russia’s crimes against the Ukrainian people. Anna Rassamakhina, MIHR’s expert in international humanitarian law, explains what needs to be done to straighten things out.
3 April 2025
Throughout 2022, Russian forces sought to establish their own governing structures in the occupied areas of the Kherson region. Central to this effort was the creation of a repressive apparatus staffed by local collaborators. They were supposed to operate under the supervision of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), which reinforced its presence with traitors including former Ukrainian officials from Crimea, the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, and “Berkut” riot police officers who fled Ukraine after the Maidan protests.
31 March 2025
On March 31, the Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform presented a research paper on Russia’s policy of prosecution of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war, which has clear signs of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
31 March 2025
An exhibition titled Civilians in Captivity: Stories of Unjust Detentions has opened in the capital of Hungary. Organized by the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR) in partnership with the State Self-Government of Ukrainians in Hungary (SSUUH), the exhibition sheds light on one of the least known humanitarian crises of Russia’s war against Ukraine — enforced disappearances and the unlawful detention of Ukrainian civilians from occupied territories.
28 March 2025
Call Me Maks is the first release for The Stronger We Become – a campaign for the release of the thousands of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians in Russian captivity.
28 March 2025