Russian forces are abducting Ukrainians in occupied territories

It was an icy cold morning on March 23 when Russian forces knocked on Svetlana Zalizetskaya’s front door in Melitopol in southeast Ukraine. Hoping to find her inside, they came face to face with her elderly parents instead. “I wasn’t home at the time,” she told FRANCE 24. The three armed men searched the place, turning the house “upside down”, and took her 75-year-old father to an unknown location.

Zalizetskaya, the director of local newspaper Holovna Gazeta Melitopolya and news website RIA-Melitopol, had fled the city days earlier. “I was intimidated by Galina Danilchenko,” she said, referring to the pro-Russian acting mayor who replaced Ivan Fedorov, who was himself abducted on March 11 and eventually released in exchange for nine Russian conscripts.

“[Danilchenko] asked me to become a propagandist for Russia and to start reporting in support of the occupation. She tried to convince me by promising a great career in Moscow,” said Zalizetskaya, who refused the proposal and packed her things to leave the city for fear of reprisal. A few days later, she received a call and found that her father had been taken hostage.

“Their demand was clear: he would be returned if I gave myself in.” But Zalizetskaya turned down the Russian proposal once again, “so they demanded that I shut down RIA-Melitopol”.

On March 25, two days after her father’s abduction, Zalizetskaya posted on Facebook announcing the transfer of her news website to third parties “in exchange for evacuation” and “in territory controlled by Ukraine” who, according to her, “provide objective information”. She is still sharing articles by RIA-Melitopol on her Facebook page and said that she did not personally consent to cooperation beyond the statement. 

Her father was released later that day, relatively unscathed but deprived of the medicine he needed and badly shaken up by his abduction. Though Zalizetskaya was relieved, the anger she feels is palpable. “I regard such actions of the occupying forces as terrorism,” she said, adding that she is determined to continue working as a journalist to document the horrors Ukrainians face in Russian-occupied territories.

This wasn’t the first time a journalist or a relative had been detained by Russian forces in Ukraine. The UN’s monitoring mission on the ground, which is documenting abductions, found that 21 journalists and civil society activists have been arrested since Russia began its invasion on February 24. Family members are often kept in the dark on the whereabouts of their loved ones, without any idea of what is happening to them. Of the 21 captured, only nine have been “reportedly released”, according to the UN.

International nonprofit Reporters Without Borders also published a handful of alarming accounts regarding the detention, torture, intimidation and threats media workers in Ukraine are facing. 

Consequences of speaking out

The UN says many perpetrators of abductions come from the Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, home to self-proclaimed “republics” allied with the Russian Federation and pro-Russian armed groups. Cases have also been reported in parts of Kyiv, Kheron, Donetsk, Sumy and Chernihiv.

“It’s becoming increasingly dangerous for journalists and editors to stay in regions occupied by Russia,” Sergiy Tomilenko, president of Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists, told FRANCE 24. “They are isolated in these territories. They can’t leave.”

Local officials are also being targeted for detention. Abductions have also been alleged in northern cities including Nova Kakhovka, where the secretary of the city council has vanished, and in Bucha, where six local council members were detained and eventually released following a Russia raid, according to the BBC.

The UN found that 24 public officials and civil servants of local authorities had been detained in Russian-controlled regions. Thirteen have reportedly been released, but the location and status of the remaining 11 are unknown. 

Political analyst Mattia Nelles, who is normally based in Kyiv but now lives in Germany, has been tracking abductions in the east and south of Ukraine. He said Russian forces will target “anyone who is actively speaking out against the occupation” and are especially quick to detain those calling for protests.

“I even heard of two cases in Kherson where people were randomly picked up at checkpoints after Russian forces searched their phones and found many pro-Ukrainian channels open on their Telegram [app],” he explained. “My friend who lives there says he never takes his phone with him when he goes outside now.”

‘You could be next’

Nelles, his Ukrainian wife and her parents managed to flee the country early on, though a large part of their family is still living in Svatove, a city in the Luhansk Oblast. On March 26, neighbours informed his uncle that Russian forces had come looking for him. “It was unclear why, but we assumed it was because he is an army veteran. He served as a medic in 2016 and 2018 for the Ukrainian army in Donbas.”

His uncle went into hiding, but Russian forces found him shortly after and detained him for interrogation. “It lasted three hours,” Nelles said. “And it turned out that they were looking for his son-in-law, who is an active army soldier and is also registered at my uncle’s house. Hence the mix-up.”

Nelles’ uncle was released and, despite being deeply distressed, was unharmed. Others, like the Ukrainian fixer for Radio France who was tortured for nine days, were not as lucky.

“There are varying degrees of severity when it comes to how [Russian occupiers] treat people,” Nelles explained. “I imagine that it’s a case-by-case situation. It depends on how much the person resists, how involved they are with the Ukrainian army, or how much of a problem they were for the occupying forces.”

It also depends on what Russian forces want to get out of their detainees. When speaking about the abduction of Zalizetskaya’s father, Tomilenko explained that the case was a clear example of Russia trying to neutralise Ukrainian media by using a carrot-and-stick method. “First, they arrest local journalists and editors, [and] try to intimidate them into saying they support the occupation,” he said. If this fails, Russian forces “simply demand that they stop covering the news”.

The goal of the abductions is crystal clear. They are an effective means of instilling fear in local populations, making it easier for Russian forces to exert control. And for some, it seems to be working. Tomilenko hears of new abductions on a daily basis and has an increasing number of journalist colleagues afraid to leave their houses. “Two colleagues in Kherson haven’t gone outside in two weeks,” he said.

In an effort to clamp down, human rights organisations in Ukraine are putting together missing persons lists and campaigning to shed light on what is happening on the ground. Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists has also published guidelines for journalists and editors in occupied territories, urging them to refrain from posting anything on social media and to use pseudonyms if working as local correspondents for international or national media outlets.

But the sense of intimidation left behind by the abductions can be felt by even the most courageous souls. “The message being sent out is: ‘If you dare to speak out, you could be next’,” Nelles explained. “That is terrifying. Especially for those who hold any official position.”