“A hell with all its demons”. How a juvenile detention centre in Taganrog was turned into a torture camp for Ukrainian prisoners

In his testimony to the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, Ukrainian serviceman Oleksandr Maksimchuk described his ordeal: “The torture was carried out as follows. They taped my eyes, hands and feet. They hung me upside down by my legs, wrapped bare wires around my fingers and applied an electric current at intervals of five to seven seconds.” He continued: “After the current was stopped, they put what I believe was a vacuum bag over my head and brought me to a state close to asphyxiation, while simultaneously punching me in the abdomen and ribs.”

According to Maksimchuk, he was tortured again on September 11, 2024, at SIZO-2 in Taganrog, where Ukrainian prisoners of war had begun to be brought two years prior. He does not remember how long the torture lasted that day: he lost consciousness several times, being revived with cold water and ammonia.

The guards demanded he confess to charges of terrorism, stemming from his service in the Azov Brigade, a Ukrainian National Guard unit designated a terrorist organisation by Russia. As part of the unit, Junior Sergeant Maksimchuk defended the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. In May 2022, he, along with other Ukrainian servicemen, left the factory, which was besieged by Russian forces. Subsequently, terrorism charges were brought against numerous captured Ukrainians associated with Azov, including not only soldiers but also support staff such as cooks and labourers. Many Ukrainians, like Maksimchuk, awaited trial in the Taganrog detention centre.

Following the war start, the detention centre was effectively transformed into a POW camp, rapidly gaining a reputation for systematic torture and abuse of Ukrainian prisoners.

Oleskandr Maksimchuk is one of the few who, while in detention, publicly spoke out about the unbearable conditions in SIZO-2 and refused to accept the charges. In early December 2024, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

“I don’t really have much to lose,” Maksimchuk told a Mediazona reporter after the verdict. “I’ve been in detention for more than two and a half years; I’m so used to it that I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a free man, walking down the street.”

Unlike the uncooperative Maksimchuk, other Ukrainian prisoners usually agree to “confess” in order to soften the attitude of the guards. They hope to quickly receive a sentence in a Russian court and get on prisoner exchange lists.

Those who are fortunate enough to be detained in other detention centres, with incomparably milder conditions, are usually intimidated with being sent to Taganrog—it is enough simply to refuse to cooperate with the investigation. SIZO-2 has become a symbol of fear, helplessness and humiliation for Ukrainians.

“This is a painful topic for almost all our clients. Both for those who have been there and even for those who have not,” says Irina Soboleva, a lawyer defending Azov members in terrorism cases, in an interview with Mediazona. “Because they have heard about Taganrog from their cellmates and are ready to do anything to avoid ending up there.”

“Unimaginable scale of violence”. A juvenile detention centre becomes a camp for Ukrainian POWs

Before the arrival of captured soldiers from Ukraine, the Taganrog detention centre held minors, women and mothers with children. To make room for the captured Ukrainians, nearly 400 Russian detainees were removed from SIZO-2 and distributed to other detention centres, according to Igor Omelchenko, head of the Public Monitoring Commission of the Rostov region.

By the end of May 2022, about 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers defending Azovstal had surrendered into Russian captivity. Almost all of them were immediately scattered across Russian detention centres in various regions.

“There are many of these places; I personally don’t know all of them. This happened in the Kursk region, although I haven’t met anyone [from Ukrainian prisoners] from there. One of my clients was held in the Kostroma region for a year and a half. The Ryazan, Belgorod regions, but this is far from a complete list,” explains Marina Garbuz, another lawyer defending captured Ukrainians, to Mediazona. According to human rights activists, by 2024, captured Ukrainians had been distributed to three dozen detention centres in various regions of Russia—from border areas, Moscow and the Ivanovo region to Irkutsk and the Krasnoyarsk krai.

By the summer, places in Rostov detention centres had run out. From the very beginning, Ukrainians were sent to Russian prisons bypassing any legal procedures, as was the case with Dmitry Lisovets from Mariupol. In April 2022, he tried to leave Mariupol, surrounded by Russian troops, with his aunt, but could not pass filtration in the Rostov region. During interrogation, Lisovets did not hide that he had served in the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, and later under contract in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He openly called himself a patriot of Ukraine, but did not participate in hostilities during the Russian invasion.

Until mid-June, the Ukrainian was held in the Taganrog detention centre without any procedural status, his lawyer Grigory Kreshchenetsky told Mediazona. Only later was he charged with terrorism, extremism and participation in an illegal armed formation. In December 2023, Lisovets was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Dmitry Lisovets’ story became one of the first public testimonies that the Taganrog detention centre had been turned into a camp for Ukrainian prisoners of war, where they are regularly tortured. “They don’t fuss around with Ukrainians in this detention centre at all. They rush into the cell in masks, beat everyone indiscriminately,” said lawyer Kreshchenetsky.

The first Ukrainian citizens were brought to the Taganrog detention centre in May 2022; it was reported that there were 89 people in the first group. Access to the detention centre for lawyers and human rights activists was immediately closed. A defender could only enter SIZO-2 together with an investigator, if, for example, the latter needed to conduct another interrogation. Any opportunity to see and talk to their client privately was excluded, says Yegor Ilyin, a lawyer from Rostov-on-Don who defends a Ukrainian still held in Taganrog, to Mediazona.

This same detention centre holds not only Ukrainians, but also Russians. In the summer of 2024, those accused in the hostage-taking case at Rostov SIZO-1 were transferred to Taganrog. According to relatives, from the first days, the detainees began to be tortured, and, in addition to physical violence, Muslim prisoners were forbidden to pray and “utter aloud any words related to Islam.” Memorial, the human rights organisation, noted that the accused were not allowed to meet with their defenders for months.

Once, lawyer Ilyin, representing the interests of a Ukrainian citizen, managed to obtain the right to visit his client in the Taganrog detention centre, but on the day of the visit, a detention centre employee brought out a piece of paper on which the Ukrainian had written that he did not wish to speak. As lawyers interviewed by Mediazona explain, such notes were written under pressure from guards to cut off prisoners from any contact with the outside world.

The regional department of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) has not commented on the news of torture and the transformation of the Taganrog detention centre into a camp for prisoners of war over the past two years. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Shtoda, who heads the detention centre, refused to speak with a Mediazona reporter. Local monitoring commission representatives were only able to enter the detention centre in the autumn of 2024, when most of the captured Ukrainian citizens had already been transferred to other detention centres in the Rostov region so that they could participate in court hearings. It finally became possible to reach clients, but not those who were still in Taganrog—access to them is still denied.

“Lawyers learned about Taganrog at the beginning of 2024, when prisoners of war who had been formally charged and were being tried at the Southern District Military Court began to be transferred from there to detention centres in Rostov,” says lawyer Marina Garbuz. “Most chose to remain silent in court and confess, but privately they described to their lawyers what they had endured in Taganrog. This wasn’t a case of individual guards acting out; this was violence on an unimaginable scale. Many of the accounts were so horrific they were hard to believe, but then colleagues heard the same stories from other detainees who had been held in Taganrog. These stories are just fucked up. I can’t fathom why anyone would torture someone—except perhaps because such acts have been perpetrated throughout all times.”

“Reception”, starvation and interrogations “in the offices”: How Ukrainian prisoners survived in the detention centre

From mid-2022, the number of Ukrainians held in the Taganrog detention centre increased daily. According to local residents, guards in military camouflage and trucks from which Ukrainian prisoners were dragged were a common sight at the detention centre gates. Guards began beating them from the moment they arrived.

“We were thrown from the back of KamAZ trucks—our hands tied and eyes blindfolded—and forced to line up against the wall under a hail of blows, where the beatings continued with hands, feet, batons and electric shockers,” wrote Mykola Kravchuk, a serviceman from the Azov battalion, in a letter to his lawyers. “If someone lost consciousness, they were revived with ammonia, after which the beatings continued.”

This was called “reception,” Kravchuk explained. Artem Serednyak, also from Azov and a former prisoner of war, described a similar “reception” in an interview with the BBC. According to Serednyak, prisoners were beaten not only with batons but also with metal rods. “Welcome, boys! Do you know where you’ve come? You’ll rot here for the rest of your lives!” the Ukrainian quoted a Russian officer as saying when they arrived.

Then, the prisoners were taken to one of the offices and stretched out on the floor, recalled Kravchuk. While lying in this position, he had to give his “personal details.” After this, the Ukrainians were stripped and sent to the showers, then “DNA samples were taken, fingerprints recorded and photos taken for their personal files,” the Ukrainian wrote. After the “reception,” all Ukrainian servicemen were given underwear, prison garb, a towel and a mug and placed in cells, which were often overcrowded, lawyers defending the prisoners of war told Mediazona.

According to Kravchuk, the prisoners were woken every day at 6am. First, they had to clean their cell, and after breakfast—from 8am to midday—the Ukrainians underwent “investigative procedures,” which were often accompanied by beatings and abuse. The Ukrainians were interrogated throughout the day, with a one-hour lunch break.

“Our treatment in captivity depended on who was on duty at the prison. There were some guards who beat all the prisoners,” Yuri Gulchuk told the BBC. “Other guards would take everyone out of the cell into the corridor and ask who was over 50, sick or injured. They would separate them from the rest and not beat them. I consider that a demonstration of some humanity.”

“Checks” and interrogations in “the offices” were especially brutal. A “check” involved a group of special forces entering the cells. With their eyes covered, the Ukrainians were made to stand against the wall, with their legs spread wide, almost to a split, after which they were beaten with batons. “If I mentioned my injury during this, they would start beating exclusively on the injured area,” the Ukrainian recalled.

It is unknown who exactly was behind the torture of the prisoners—whether it was detention centre staff or outside officials—lawyers only speculate that they could have been prison system officers from other detention centres or penal colonies, brought to Taganrog in shifts, as if on rotation. Memorial noted that the detention centre was under the control of the FSB, the Federal Security Service.

The mother of one of the Ukrainian prisoners relayed to Mediazona the words of a lawyer who assured her that he had heard screams coming from the Taganrog detention centre when he came to visit her son this autumn. The lawyer was not allowed to see the prisoner at that time.

Prisoners began to be taken to “the offices” a few days after arriving in Taganrog. As Kravchuk recounted, operatives participated in the interrogations. The Ukrainian claimed that he was tied with a leather belt and “rolled into a cocoon,” placed on the floor, and a sandbag was placed on his chest to make breathing difficult. Kravchuk was then beaten with a rubber truncheon and tortured with an electric shocker. In another instance, a prisoner’s hands were tied behind his back, a pipe was inserted into the resulting loop and he was hung on horizontal bars. According to Kravchuk, the “offices” were used extensively from autumn 2022 to May 2023. “During these ‘procedures’ they obtained confessions to ‘war crimes’,” the Ukrainian noted in his letter.

Kravchuk eventually spent almost two years in the Taganrog SIZO-2. Only in August 2024 was he transferred to one of the Rostov detention centres. From there, he was able to send a letter to his lawyers, where he described his experience in captivity. The Ukrainian recounted that even during short walks in the fresh air, the prisoners of war were not spared beatings. These walks were allowed once a week and consisted of a run from the detention centre building to the exercise yard. After two or three minutes, the soldiers were driven back to their cells. “At every turn of the walking route, special forces were stationed, who felt like they were obliged to strike with a baton,” Kravchuk recalled.

Ukrainian soldier Artem Serednyak was slightly luckier. He spent less than a year in Taganrog, from September 2022 to summer 2023. During this time, he lost weight from 82 to 60 kilograms due to meagre rations. “They were fed a cabbage broth and quarters of slices of rye or wheat bread. They were fed once a day,” says lawyer Madina Iskhakova, who defends one of the Ukrainian prisoners.

Mykola Kravchuk, for example, wrote that the “dish” fit in an aluminium mug. Other lawyers interviewed by Mediazona who defend Ukrainians also say that the prisoners were “starved.” “It was just water as soup, no meat, no vegetables, nothing. And the prisoners did not receive any parcels,” says Irina Soboleva. “Both relatives, lawyers and probably volunteers tried to send parcels, but the Ukrainians received nothing. Where it all went is unclear.”

“They seemed unreliable”. Civilians were also held in the Taganrog SIZO-2

Not only Ukrainian soldiers captured during hostilities but also civilians are held in Russian detention centres. Ukrainian authorities claim that Russia may be holding around 28,000 civilians abducted in occupied territories. At the same time, independent human rights organisations studying the situation with the arrest of Ukrainians are reluctant to give specific figures, believing that “no statistics are reliable.”

Civilians end up in Russian captivity for various reasons. As Anastasia Panteleeva of the Media Initiative for Human Rights explained, people can be abducted and detained for helping the Ukrainian Armed Forces, for example. Even minor suspicions of this are enough to be detained.

“Roughly speaking, Ukrainians are arrested for ‘counteracting the special military operation’. These are people who, for some reason, were taken prisoner because they seemed unreliable. They are not charged with anything, and we have no access to them,” notes Marina Garbuz.

Lawyer Leonid Solovyov agrees, believing that Russian soldiers “simply rounded up everyone who seemed suspicious to them.” But to release a civilian would mean admitting their mistake and acknowledging that the person was held in captivity.

“Suspicious” was how Russian military and security services regarded journalist Viktoria Roshchina, who disappeared in occupied territory in the summer of 2023. This was not the journalist’s first detention. In March 2022, she had already been held in Russian captivity, but was released relatively quickly.

During her last work trip, Roshchina was gathering reporting for articles about the consequences of the Kakhovka dam’s destruction, as well as the situation at the captured Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The journalist apparently entered the occupied regions from the Russian side. She last made contact on August 22 in Berdyansk, telling her contact of her plans to travel to Melitopol. Nine months later, the Russian Ministry of Defence announced that Viktoria had been detained. The ministry did not disclose the specific charges against her. Ukrainian human rights activists reported that she ended up in the Taganrog torture detention centre and spent almost a year there.

Grigory Sinchenko, 32, is another civilian held in the Taganrog detention centre. The Ukrainian is accused of some 40 offences, including espionage, sabotage and attempted murder of Donetsk security officials. The Ukrainian was first detained in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in 2016 on suspicion of blowing up market stalls and extortion.

The case did not go to trial, as Sinchenko was released as part of a prisoner exchange with Ukraine. Several years later, he returned to the DPR, where he was detained again on charges of organising another series of explosions. As Ukrainian media reported, Sinchenko blew up a cell tower belonging to the Phoenix mobile operator in protest against violence perpetrated against residents by local security forces. Shortly after his arrest, Sinchenko managed to escape, but he was recaptured a month later and sent to Russia, specifically to the Taganrog detention centre. His mother said that her son—who has a disability and numerous health problems—is being tortured and denied medical care.

Viktoria Roshchina did not survive her second captivity: her death was reported in October 2024. It is believed she may have died during transfer from Taganrog to Moscow. The journalist’s body is still in Russia.

“An atmosphere of terror and horror”. Russia doesn’t respond to accusations of systematic torture of Ukrainians

In October 2024, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report accusing Russia of systematically torturing Ukrainian prisoners. The report stated that Ukrainians held in Russian prisons are beaten, tortured with electric shocks, deprived of sleep and held in uncomfortable positions for hours. “Prisoners are not allowed to lie down or sit during the day. They can only walk or stand,” says lawyer Madina Iskhakova.

The report also mentioned sexual violence against prisoners. This is corroborated by lawyers who are aware of cases where Ukrainians had rubber batons and “other objects” inserted into their rectums. In one letter, a Ukrainian prisoner calls SIZO-2 “a hell with all its demons”, a place he dreads returning to. “Even the term ‘concentration camp’ would be too mild for SIZO-2,” the Ukrainian writes.

Recently, during a hearing at the Southern District Military Court, lawyers managed to convince a judge to transfer their client to another detention centre with significantly better conditions.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Dr. Alice Jill Edwards, also mentioned the systematic and state-sanctioned practice of violence against Ukrainian prisoners as early as September 2023. In the summer of 2024, Vladimir Putin said that 6,465 Ukrainian soldiers were being held in Russian captivity. According to estimates by the Ukrainian NGO Media Initiative for Human Rights, more than 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers may have been in Russian captivity by spring of last year.

The Russian authorities have not responded to reports from the UN and human rights organisations, despite the growing number of accounts of torture. Oleksandr Maksimchuk, who refused to confess and spoke openly about the torture, demanded that the court at least conduct an investigation into the detention centre where he was treated inhumanely for more than two years. “An atmosphere of terror and horror was artificially created in relation to me, the purpose of which was to force me to perform actions that contradict my interests and are illegal,” the Ukrainian said in his closing statement.

According to Igor Omelchenko, head of the Public Monitoring Commission of the Rostov region, former detainees—Russian citizens—began to be returned to the Taganrog detention centre by the end of October 2024. However, some parts of the detention centre still hold Ukrainian prisoners of war. For example, Maksimchuk was transferred to Rostov-on-Don a few months before his trial, but after he declared his innocence and spoke about the torture, he was transferred back to the Taganrog detention centre.

In October, Russian ombudsperson Tatyana Moskalkova reported that staff from her office had visited more than 2,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war in detention. “I was sent video footage: how these meetings took place, what questions were asked, what is being done to help these people,” she said in an interview with Argumenty i Fakty. Moskalkova made no mention of torture.

Such visits to prisoners of war did indeed occur, lawyers say. But, as is usually the case in other detention centres or penal colonies, the administration of the Taganrog detention centre took all measures to make a good impression on the inspectors.

“One day, an inspection was due to arrive. I understand it was Moskalkova or perhaps someone from her office. And they prepared for this day: everyone was given new clothes, the grass was painted, the lawns were trimmed, and so on. They even gave them [the Ukrainian prisoners] biscuits, which they were extremely happy about, because the usual diet was very meagre,” Irina Soboleva told Mediazona about one such visit. “But as soon as the inspectors left, everyone changed back, everything went back to normal, everything became the same as before. And those who—as is usually the case in colonies and detention centres—were not very reliable and could open their mouths in front of the inspectors, were hidden or even taken away.”

Editor: Maria Klimova