Four years later. Human rights activists found a volunteer from Kyiv, Oleksandr Kostyuk, kidnapped by the Russians in a pre-trial detention center in Crimea

A volunteer from Kyiv, Oleksandr Kostyuk, who was kidnapped by the Russians at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, was found in Crimea. The Russian invaders are illegally holding him in Pre-trial Detention Center-2 in Simferopol.

This was reported by the manager of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center Zarema Barieva. Oleksandr Kostyuk is currently in Pre-trial Detention Center-2 in the city of Simferopol. He was kidnapped by the invaders in the Sumy region in early March 2022.

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, on February 27, Oleksandr Kostyuk returned to Ukraine from Poland, where he worked. At that time, his wife and children left Kyiv to visit their parents in the village of Borodyanka in the Kyiv region. After returning to Kyiv, unable to contact his relatives, Oleksandr joined volunteer activities to evacuate people. He was captured by the Russians on March 5, 2022, in the village of Dzerkalka, Romensky district, Sumy region. According to Bariyeva, Russian soldiers kidnapped him in the middle of the road and took him in an armored personnel carrier in an unknown direction.

In April 2022, Kostyuk’s wife managed to find out from those released from Russian captivity that her husband was in the city of Stary Oskol, Belgorod region. As human rights activists later learned, Kostyuk was taken as a hostage in an armored personnel carrier for 10 days, taken to a field and, simulating a shooting, shot above the head and ears, interrogated about Ukrainian military personnel and “spies,” and when they realized that he was a volunteer, he was taken to a correctional colony in Belgorod region.

Barieva also reported that by August 2024, Kostyuk’s wife learned that he was in Detention Center-1 in Kursk, from where she received the last letter from her husband. After the start of the Kursk operation, Kostyuk’s whereabouts and his status remained unknown.

Recently, the Crimean Resource Center learned that Oleksandr is in Detention Center-2 in Simferopol in incommunicado status (Incommunicado status means that the Russians do not recognize the fact of the prisoner’s detention, do not report where he is and do not bring any charges).

Zarema Barieva emphasized that for almost four years now, Oleg Kostyuk, a Kyiv resident, has been dragged from Russian Detention Centers throughout the territory of the Russian Federation without trial or investigation and any indictment.