Yevgenia Chirikova: We Are Talking About A Real Humanitarian Catastrophe

31.10.2025, 10:34 charter97.org

Yevgenia Chirikova: We Are Talking About A Real Humanitarian Catastrophe130.10.2025, 15:58 8,654 Evgenia ChirikovaOnly a complete de-occupation of Ukraine will help.Human rights activist Evgenia Chirikova has spent several years helping Ukrainians who have been kidnapped and held by Russian occupiers in captured territories and in Russian prisons. Her team documents evidence of torture, searches for missing people and seeks international pressure on the Kremlin.The Charter97.org website spoke with Evgenia Chirikova about her team's work.-You have been working for several years to help Ukrainians who have been effectively enslaved in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, kidnapped and imprisoned. Can you tell us how many civilian Ukrainians are now being held by the Russian occupation forces?"- Thank you very much for this question. This is a very important topic, because we are talking about a true humanitarian disaster in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Indeed, Russian security forces are kidnapping civilians, women, men, and even teenagers. Then they are sent to torture concentration camps, which are located both in the occupied territories and on the territory of the Russian Federation. The geography of these prisons is very wide. At least on the territory of Russia we know of at least 180 prisons where Ukrainians are held.If we are talking about civilians, this is a particularly acute topic. Why? Because these are not combatants, they are not exchanged. Until this year, there were about 6,000 Ukrainians known to have been exchanged, and only 300 of them were civilians, the rest were prisoners of war. If we start actively exchanging civilian Ukrainians, rest assured that the next day the occupying Russian authorities will seize even more civilians from the occupied territories. These people should just be released, not held hostage. They have not committed any crimes. The only reason they are being seized and tortured is because they identify themselves as Ukrainians. I would say this is ethnic cleansing.The conditions in which they are being held are much more heinous than those in which Russian political prisoners are being held, which we know are in torture conditions. I will now tell you what we recorded, for example, in the summer of this year in the well-known torture facility of Taganrog pre-trial detention center No. 2. For 45 days, Ukrainians were not fed at all, people were starving and dying there. It is known that at least 91% of Ukrainians who are put into Russian concentration camps are tortured. This is the data from the UN Commissioner.On this topic our investigative team made a movie "Prisoners of the terror system". Its premiere took place on July 1 this year in the European Parliament. Already in 9 days a resolution was adopted condemning terror in the occupied territories and demanding the release of Ukrainian prisoners and, above all, civilians. We have shown how this system of torture of the civilian Ukrainian population from the occupied territories works.Torture is systematic. It is monstrous, but the same torture is used against Ukrainians in completely different prisons. This came to light from defectors from the Russian system who were interviewed by the International Criminal Court. These people testified that there was a meeting at the highest level where the Russian leadership gave the go-ahead for torture, saying that nothing will happen to you for torturing Ukrainians. They were given full carte blanche. That's why Ukrainians are in absolutely monstrous conditions. Both prisoners of war and civilians are sitting in the same places, and they are tortured in the same way.We are now also recording facts of labor slavery, when Ukrainians are forced to work for the occupation army, and we are recording facts when teenagers are tortured. The only way to stop this is to liberate the occupied territory. Otherwise it is impossible to stop this terror, while we are talking to you, Russian security forces are grabbing someone in the occupied territories, dragging them to the basement to torture them and testify.80% of civilian Ukrainian prisoners are in the incommunicado regime, that is, they are kidnapped, they have no contact with the outside world, with their relatives and lawyers. They don't even face any charges.The biggest tragedy is that Ukraine as of July this year gave a figure of 15,000 civilian prisoners in Russian concentration camps who were abducted from occupied territories. Now the coordination headquarters is talking about 16,000. But Ukrainian human rights activists believe that this figure is understated. And they say it's at least 30,000 to 40,000 abducted civilian prisoners who may have already been massacred, extrajudicially executed. Maybe many of them are no longer alive. Some are in concentration camps because most of them were interned, but we don't know anything about them. There are no official lists.It is important to realize that there were 70,000 people missing (this is last year's data from the Ukrainian embassy in Estonia) in the occupied territories. And now there are only more. This is the tragedy that we can't even count these people accurately, we don't know their names. This all makes the situation and the liberation of these people very difficult. This is really a humanitarian catastrophe.- What steps are being taken to release civilian Ukrainians, who is helping you in this work and what has already been achieved? - Frankly speaking, this work is extremely difficult. Why? Because the topic of civilian Ukrainian prisoners are concerned about their closest relatives and some human rights activists. Not all of them. The topic is silenced. There is little talk about it and little knowledge of it - that is why our team is so committed to it and actively disseminates information. They try not to talk about it, because it means that de-occupation is necessary, which means that assistance to the Ukrainian army is necessary, a different scale of military assistance.Recognizing this terror, it is no longer possible to demand that Ukraine give Donbas back. This means that the people who demand this are thereby endorsing Russian terror. It will spread to the entire territory of Donbass, not just the already occupied territory. This is why this topic is not very popular, and I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about it.Today, unfortunately, American donors shun this topic, they do not support this kind of investigation. We see that, for example, the Nastya Shevchenko team is trying to help Ukrainians in prison, but so far all these efforts are insufficient. More efforts are needed to draw attention to this. Now our team is doing screenings of the film "System of Terror" and organizing public discussions in Europe. In October, we were able to organize such screenings in three countries - Estonia, Poland and Italy. We would like this to become a public discussion at the level of local parliaments, at least in countries that border Russia - in the Baltic States, Poland, Finland, Norway - so that people in these countries can understand what the Russian occupation is. To understand why not an inch of Ukrainian land should not be given to Russia, because this would mean the inevitable construction of camps for the local population on these lands and the erasure of local identity.- Can Russia be held responsible for the detention of Ukrainian civilians as war crimes, for genocide of the Ukrainian population? - This is a very good question, but again we are stuck in the political will. As long as there are calls from high tribunes to give up the entire Donbass, there will be no consequences for Russia for the abduction of civilians in the occupied territories and torture.Yes, of course, it is necessary to demand that the FSB and the Rosgvardia be recognized as terrorist organizations, that Putin should not be welcomed on the carpet, but sent to The Hague as soon as his foot enters the territory of a democratic country. But so far, unfortunately, we don't see politicians ready for that. That is why we are doing everything in our power to draw attention to this.PATREONSupport the website Write your comment 1 You can support the website Charter97.orgMULTI-CURRENCY ACCOUNT FOR ASSISTANCE:Bank's name: Bank Millennium S.A.Address: ul. Stanislawa Zaryna, 2A, 02-593, WarszawaIBAN: PL97116022020000000216711123SWIFT: BIGBPLPWName of the account holder: Fundacja “KARTA ‘97”Purpose/title of payment: Donation for statuary aimsYou can contact us by the e-mail charter97@gmail.comFollow Charter97.org social media accountsFacebookYouTubeX.comvkontakteok.ruInstagramRSSTelegram