Human rights activists have found out that a secret network of camps for Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian hostages has been created in Russia, which exists separately from the official penitentiary (prison) system. This was reported by the Russian opposition project “Agency. Novosti”. As Nikolay Polozov, a lawyer and co-founder of the humanitarian initiative “Search. Captivity”, told the publication, human rights activists learned about the existence of secret prisons for Ukrainians only now, and even then mostly by accident. Russian bureaucrats “spoke” about these institutions in court certificates about the places where prisoners were held.

In a number of criminal cases regarding prisoners of war that we conducted in courts, we saw certificates about where they were held," the human rights activist explained. According to Polozov, as a rule, Ukrainian prisoners in Russia are kept in ordinary pre-trial detention centers or prisons. But now it has become known from court documents that there is also a kind of “center for temporary detention of persons detained for opposing the SVO.” Polozov believes that at least four or five such centers have been created in Russia, but there may be more.

Human rights activists have not yet been able to find any information about where such institutions may be located. “They are not part of the Federal Penitentiary System, they are controlled, apparently, by the Ministry of Defense and the military police. And from there, no information is provided - we have submitted requests - categorically,” Polozov explained. The number of Ukrainians held in such places is also unknown. Polozov notes that in secret prisons, prisoners are kept in inhuman conditions, as those who have already managed to be freed from captivity tell about. At the same time, in official pre-trial detention centers, where prisoners of war are placed if the Russian state decides to try them “according to the law”, the conditions of detention are usually slightly better, says the human rights activist. Polozov suggests that after the war ends, the system of secret prisons could be scaled up to repress Russians themselves.