In Melitopol, three Ukrainian prisoners were tortured to death by the Russians

On December 10, on Human Rights Day, the Zaporizhzhia Center for Journalists’ Solidarity spoke about civilian prisoners of Melitopol. First of all, about journalists who are in the torture chambers of Russian prisons.

According to the coordinators of the search service “Kidnapped Melitopolites”, 352 cases of detention of civilians have been documented in Melitopol. Among them are 6 journalists.

In total, 211 of the abducted people have been released. 141 people are in captivity. It is known that three have already died in captivity. We know the whereabouts of only 82 people. But we do not know where 59 prisoners are and their state of health. 46 people are currently either on trial or have received long terms under the laws of the Russian Federation. More than 17 people are on the Rosfinmonitoring list marked “terrorists-extremists,” says project coordinator Natalia Pryima.

According to Melitopol journalist Svitlana Zalizetskaya, journalists and officials were the first to be approached by the occupation authorities after the seizure of the territory.

They were all on the lists. The condition was set – either you work with us or you don’t work. This was the first requirement. Those who said they would not work were put under surveillance. So, in 2023, Heorhiy Levchenko and Anastasia Glukhovskaya were detained.

The editorial office’s work now consists not only in informing about life under occupation, but also in searching for captured colleagues.”

Currently, Heorhiy Levchenko is being held in the Mariupol pre-trial detention center. He is charged under three articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. As for the whereabouts of Anastasia Glukhovskaya, it is known that from Melitopol she was transferred to the Taganrog pre-trial detention center. However, it is not known where she was transferred next.

Svitlana Zalizetska appealed to the deputies of the Council of Europe and experts in Strasbourg with a request to speed up the process of exchanging captured journalists, since not all of them can wait for their release. As happened with Viktoriya Roshchina – the Zaporizhzhia journalist died in the torture chambers of the prison.

A journalist from Mariupol, Vyacheslav Tverdokhlib, who spent 5 days getting out of the occupied city, said that before the occupation, an offer to work on the Russian Zvezda TV channel was sent to the e-mail of the TV-7 channel.

During the filtering, I met with the former sysadmin of the site. He had not worked for more than 6-7 years. And the Russians demanded passwords and access codes from the pro-Ukrainian site from him, – says Vyacheslav.

At the Mariupol TV company, one cameraman, Viktor Dedov, died during the occupation, two employees were taken prisoner.

In total, according to the Institute of Mass Information, 31 Ukrainian journalists are in Russian captivity.