At 10 a.m. on May 13, 2022 — the day of Iryna Horobtsova’s 37th birthday — her parents, Volodymyr and Tatyana, saw their lives change forever. In Kherson, then under Russian occupation and just three months into the full-scale invasion, a group of Russian soldiers knocked on their door. They rummaged through the house, checked phones, demanded documents, and called them Nazis. Within ten minutes, the soldiers had confiscated a laptop, two mobile phones, and taken their daughter away, hooded and in silence.
“We only had time to ask where they were taking her,” recalls Tatyana, now 75, a retired physics and astronomy teacher. “They told us we should speak to the city’s military commander. We went to him in person but got no answers. So we sent two official requests, one to the central security committee in Moscow, the other to the one in Simferopol. Moscow replied saying she had been arrested for opposing the ‘special military operation’ and that we shouldn’t look for her anymore.”
According to the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL), a Ukrainian human rights organization that has been documenting war crimes since 2014 in Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk — and since 2022 across all occupied territories — at least 7,000 civilians are currently being held illegally. However, only 1,600 of those cases have been officially confirmed. The remaining 5,400 are listed as missing and may be in the same situation.
In 2023, Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs created a Unified Register of Persons Missing in Special Circumstances — covering those who have disappeared during armed conflict, military operations, foreign occupation, or man-made and natural disasters. By 2024, this register held 14,000 names. The number has since declined slightly, as some of the missing were later found dead, or — in rare cases — released. But these figures are only estimates: the Russian Federation does not disclose information on detainees and denies access to the International Red Cross and other organizations.
“We went to Crimea ourselves, trying to find out what was happening to her,” the Horobtsovas say. “Eventually, we found out where she was being held. We hired a lawyer who sent a new letter requesting information. The response was the same: they assured us that our daughter was not in danger, but her case was classified as a state secret.”
For two years, Volodymyr and Tatyana had no updates on their daughter’s condition and no contact with her. Only later did they learn that Iryna had been pressured repeatedly to sign a document — likely a false confession — in exchange for basic rights. She had resisted for over 700 days. Eventually, worn down, she signed. That finally allowed her to write home.
“She told us she’d lost 20 kilos, was barely eating, and felt very weak. That’s why she gave in,” says Volodymyr. “After that, we were allowed to send her packages, but getting anything from Ukraine to Crimea is extremely difficult.”
Last year, after two years of pre-trial detention, she was formally charged with espionage, allegedly committed between 2022 and 2024 — a period in which she was already imprisoned. “They basically accused her of spying while she was in their custody,” says Tatyana. “It’s absurd, but that was the verdict.” She was sentenced to 10 years.
On March 31 of this year, a Moscow court upheld the sentence on appeal. The family’s lawyer was allowed to attend, but only as a private citizen — not as a legal defender. Iryna wasn’t given a defense attorney. “We’re now waiting for her to be transferred back to Simferopol so we can get in touch again.”
Since her sentencing, Iryna has been allowed visits. But for her elderly parents, the journey is exhausting: Kherson is geographically close to Crimea, but because of the war, they would have to travel through Georgia and then Russia to reach her. Their only real connection comes through volunteers, who visit and deliver food and medicine — and bring back news.
“Thankfully, she’s no longer starving like she was those first two years,” her mother says.
“We at CCL focus on protecting Ukrainian civilians who’ve been illegally deprived of their freedom by Russian forces,” explains Mykhailo Savva, a political science professor and member of the Center’s expert council. “These are people who didn’t take part in the war, never fought, and one day just disappear — no explanation. Many are abducted from occupied territories and transferred to Russia without any court ruling. Thousands have suffered this fate, though exact numbers are impossible to confirm. Russia doesn’t comply with international humanitarian law and does not inform the International Red Cross about these detainees.”
The recent identification of journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna’s mutilated and tortured body — returned during a prisoner exchange in February — has once again brought attention to the unlawful detention of civilians in occupied areas and the horrors they face in total absence of legal rights.
“Our goal is to locate these people — and it’s incredibly difficult,” continues Savva. “We provide families with guidance on who to contact and what to do. But our most important support comes from Russian friends and collaborators — volunteers and lawyers. I can’t reveal details of their work for safety reasons, but their contribution is vital — and a true act of heroism.”
These Russian lawyers play a key role when official criminal proceedings are initiated against abducted Ukrainian civilians. Since the full-scale invasion began, over 600 such cases have been documented — more than half involving civilians.
That’s how the family of Mykola Petrovsky, a 32-year-old from Kherson, learned where he was. “A Russian lawyer called us and told us Mykola was being held in Simferopol on espionage charges,” recalls his mother, Liubov. “It had been six months since he disappeared. We hadn’t heard a word until then.”
The nightmare began on March 27, 2022, when Mykola left home to help distribute food and water in a besieged town. Shortly after, he lost contact. The next morning, he returned home under Russian escort, with visible injuries and bloodstains on his clothes. Security forces searched the house, seized belongings, and took him and his father away. Both were interrogated separately, but only the father was released.
The last direct contact came on March 29, when Mykola briefly phoned from an unknown number. “He just managed to say he was alive before the call was cut off,” Liubov says.
The family later learned that Mykola had spent two years on trial before being sentenced, on February 13, 2024, to 16 years in a penal colony. Every appeal has been rejected.
“Mykola had lost part of his foot in a car accident years ago,” says his mother. “Even though he’s disabled, he’s received no medical care in prison. He’s also suffered a severe bacterial infection and has lost a lot of weight. I fear for his life.”
Over the past year, the family has managed to exchange emails with him, but they haven’t seen him since his arrest. They believe he was tortured during interrogation — and that it likely continued in prison.
“Often the only sources of information about these detainees are people still in occupied areas or those who’ve managed to flee to Ukraine or Europe,” says Savva. “These cases happen completely outside any legal framework.”
The families’ only hope lies in future prisoner exchanges. Both Mykola and Iryna were targeted for their volunteer work: he delivered food door-to-door in besieged towns, and she brought medicine to hospitals, sometimes driving injured people and doctors herself. On social media, she also criticized the occupation.
“We know many families like ours,” says Iryna’s mother. “Young sons and daughters who vanished. Some were later released, others not. Our daughter was unlucky — just like her great-grandfather, who was of Italian origin and was arrested in 1938 for alleged espionage. He was executed. Somehow, history repeats itself.”
Cover photo: Dnipro War Museum. Picture by Ilaria Romano.
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