Three Ukrainian citizens were killed in Kirov prison No. 33 in the Russian-occupied part of Donetsk Oblast on Aug. 6, Heide Rizayeva, the adviser to the head of the Ukrainian delegation in the Trilateral Contact Group announced.
According to her, the prisoners were convicted before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and seized the area where the prison is located.
“It is impossible to say exactly why they were killed. Even if it was a riot inside the prison and a showdown among prisoners, it should have been prevented,” Rizayeva said.
Only two of the victims are currently known by name.
One is Yevhen Sotnikov, a Ukrainian judo champion, who had been convicted of the murder of an 18-year-old boy. The other is Oleksandr Davydov, whose crime was not revealed.
The identity of the third victim was “carefully hidden,” Rizhayeva said. His body was lost in an intensive care unit somewhere in Donetsk Oblast.
The identities of the killers have not been established.
As of June 21, 405 Ukrainian citizens were in captivity in Russia and the occupied territories, according to the Commissioner for Human Rights Lyudmila Denisova.
“Unfortunately, the state cannot guarantee the observance of constitutional rights and freedoms in the occupied territories. Our compatriots are forced to survive under the laws of natural selection of the aggressor state, ” Denisova said.
However, there may be many more prisoners. According to Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Japarova, on July 8, there were about 160 secret prisons in the occupied parts of Donbas, where more than 3,500 Ukrainian citizens are illegally detained.
In Jan. 2021, journalists reported on Isolation, a former factory and community center that had been converted into a prison by the Russian-sponsored militants. Torture, beatings and sexual violence are rampant at Isolation, as are staged fights between detainees.
