Russia: Forced Disappearance of a Ukrainian Teacher
(Kyiv, June 13, 2022)
Those who were on the territory of the Chernihiv region of the Russian Federation were accused of the teacher Viktoria Andrusha of passing information to the Ukrainian authorities about the movement of Russian troops. A few days later, when the Russian troops retreated after a month of occupation, Victoria was forcibly taken to Russia. This is not the first time that a full-scale Russian invasion has taken place, when members of the Ukrainian population have shown sensitivity to allergic reactions.
“Russian authorities need to locate Victoria Andrusha and other victims of violence,” said Belkis Ville, senior crisis and manifestation specialist at Human Rights Watch. “Russian government practices should demand that detainees be detained under conditions of full release and release all those who were detained.”
A few weeks after her detention, Victoria’s relatives were unofficially informed that she was being held in a pre-trial detention center in the Kursk region, and no one was allowed to see her. The prison administration denies that they have such a detainee. Victoria’s lawyer was unable to see her. The fact that the Russian authorities detained Victoria is now refusing to reveal her detention and pointing to the place of her removal, which allows her to be considered a victim of a seizure seizure.
Russia should investigate the detention of Viktoria Andrusha and rule out her whereabouts and legal grounds for her detention, Human Rights Watch said. The Russian authorities must be born Victoria and possibly return to Ukraine, and until then they must strictly observe her rights. In particular, she has the right to choose her own lawyer.
Victoria is 25 years old. She grew up in the village of Stary Bykov, Chernihiv region, in recent years she worked as a teacher in the city of Brovary, Kyiv region. In the early days, she went to her family in Staryi Bykov. Soon the village was occupied by Russian troops. Victoria’s sister, Olga, says that on March 26, four days before the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv military industry, they came to their house and ransacked it. They are serials that someone from their family helps the Ukrainian military. Olga Andrusha denies this.
The soldiers took away the money found during the search, electronics and boxes with boxes of things. During the search, according to Olga, they found Victoria’s phones and began to say that she was transmitting information to Ukrainian intelligence officers about the movement of Russian troops. After that, they were taken to the neighboring village, Novyi Bykov, and placed in the building of the boiler house, which included police officers who held the detained people. She was kept there for two or three days, without informing her relatives about her whereabouts, after which she was taken away somewhere. This became known from the stories of two inhabitants kept together with her later in the same formation, but released.
On March 27, the sick again came to Victoria’s relatives and the government to collect all her documents. At the same time, they detained her mother, saying that she “raised her daughter poorly.” As Olga said, her mother said that Victoria was taken on television by Russian soldiers who were killed because of the transmitted messages. Russian servicemen kept Victoria’s mother in the house where they were based for three days. Only after the Russian troops left the village on March 31.
On June 7, Human Rights Watch was able to talk to a civilian who was in the Russian Federation, who was forcibly taken to Russia from March 23 to April 18 and kept in Detention Facility No. 1 in the Kursk Region. He was able to return to Ukraine as part of film. He said that men and women were kept separately from each other in the isolation ward. The women were kept in warehouse no. 13. He heard from other detainees that there was a woman from Brovary named Victoria, who is accused of passing data on the location of Russian troops.
The man says that in addition to him, 12 other men were held captive. All of them were civilians. Some of them were military investigators who held them for “interfering with the armed forces of the American operation.” As the man says, for all the time that he was in the detention center, neither he nor any of his cellmates ever had the opportunity to talk to a lawyer. After being discovered, he discovered that his relatives and relatives of other detainees were sent to the lawyers’ detention center, etc.
Irina Biryukova, a Russian human rights lawyer, told Human Rights Watch that on April 25 she was stressed in a pre-trial detention center where Viktoria Andrusha was reportedly dating. She showed the presence of the detention center with her lawyer’s certificate and order, but did not answer that she needed to speak with the head of the detention center. The head of the detention center determined Irina what she knew about Victoria and that it was Victoria who had died.
Biryukova replied that she wanted to meet Victoria and get information. The boss irritates someone (probably a secret service officer) and said that a lawyer wants to meet Victoria Andrusha. Then he listened to the answer, hung up and, looking at the lawyer in the eyes, said that in the detention center “she is not among the detainees or accused.”
Two Russian human rights activists who are fighting violations of the law in the penal system of the Russian Federation told Human Rights Watch that they are aware of men, members of the Ukrainian population, who are suffering from distribution and reaching detainees in other closed institutions on Russian territory. Two of them are located in the Kyiv region – one from Bucha, and the second from Dymer, and they probably happened in two different institutions in the Bryansk region. The third man is a resident of the Kherson region, and he is likely to be in investigative isolation in the Russian-occupied Crimea.
According to human rights activists, the authorities officially renounce the fact of detention and report the whereabouts of these men. It was not possible to obtain confirmation of credentials, which actually took place in institutions.
started from February 24 to May 10 Monitoring mission on human adaptation in Ukraine documented 204 cases of infection of women, which can be qualified as a mass disappearance (169 men, 34 and 1 boy). The vast majority of them are from the developing armed formed and located with them. Human Rights Watch staff documented at least six enforced disappearances in the Chernihiv region.
Laws of War allow a belligerent during an international armed conflict to intern the parties however, once the supposed internment falls away, the civilians must be released.
If, in the course of an international armed conflict, one of the parties denies the fact of the detention of the party or refuses to report his place at the exit with the intention of depriving him of the protection of the law for a long time, such actions qualify from the perspective of international law as an aggressive disappearance. Enforced disappearance, according to the statute of the court proceedings, is a crime against humanity.
“The laws of war do not regulate territorial troops during retreats with occupied restrictions to take with them a share of the population of Ukraine,” Belkis Ville said. “Russia was faced with the emergence of all persons who were forcibly taken from Ukraine to Russia and without trial in relation to negotiations, and the practice of persecuting enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention of persons in the occupied territories immediately arose.”