People are key!

Stories of Ukrainian Civilian Hostages as Told by Their Loved Ones

“Fourth Year Without Dad” — Rustem Huhuryk

My name is Victoria.

I am Rustem’s wife.

And my daughter is the girl whose dad was taken away.

On March 27, 2022, time stood still for us..

Not slowly, not gradually: they collapsed in a single moment.

🫶 We were traveling together: me, my husband Rustem, our six‑year‑old daughter and her 80‑year‑old mother. We were simply trying to save ourselves, to leave the occupied Kherson region. We were not running from life: we were saving it.

But at the checkpoint in Chongar they separated us. They changed our destinies forever.

🫶 Rustem was taken away by Russian security forces.

Without explanations. Without words. Without the right to say goodbye.

They told me: either you go on with the girl, or you go back.

But how could I leave without my husband?

How could I abandon the person they were forcibly holding in the hands of those who look at you as if you were nothing?

🫶 I stayed. Because my heart screamed: you cannot leave him.

We spent 58 hours there: in tension, in fear, in uncertainty.

And then they came. The FSB.

In front of our daughter they handcuffed Rustem.

They did not let him say a single word.

And they took him away by force.

🫶 My daughter watched as they forced him face down, pinning his head down with a boot, and shoved him into a van.

She was silent.

And then she quietly asked me:

“Mom, will they kill Dad?”

I didn’t know what to answer her.

🫶 Since that day my husband has been in hell.

And we are in constant waiting, between hope and fear.

They accused him of something he never did.

False witnesses. A false trial.

8 years and 6 months of high-security penal colony —

for loving Ukraine.

For not breaking.

For remaining himself.

🫶 They transported him like an object.

Prison. Transfers. Wagons. Cells. Humiliation.

They made him crawl, sit for hours hunched on a narrow bench, without the right to move. Without care. Without help.

With pain in his body and fear in his heart.

🫶 Before the arrest Rustem already had serious health problems and was undergoing examination. He needed treatment. But they simply took him away, depriving him of any medical assistance.

In detention his condition quickly worsened: swelling in his legs, shortness of breath, hearing problems, constant weakness.

He is exhausted. Worn out. But forced to endure in silence — without doctors, without medicine, without the right to help.

🫶 And at home a little girl.

My daughter is growing up without a father.

She asks why all the other children have dads, and she only has photographs.

Every night she says:

“Mom, maybe Dad will come back today?”

🫶 I am learning to smile through tears.

I am learning to be strong when I want to fall.

I hold on for her.

And Rustem holds on for us.

His mother waits for her son every day.

I wait for my husband.

And our daughter waits for her dad.

🫶 We are not asking for mercy.

We are asking for justice.

We are asking for a voice.

We are asking you not to stay silent.

Because silence is also a weapon.

And it kills slowly.

🫶 I believe that one day the prison gates will open.

And my daughter will run to her dad again.

He will embrace us.

And we will be a family again — not in memories, but in reality.

And for now we wait.

Already four years.

And this is the reality of our time.

Oleg Shevandin

My name is Larisa Shevandina, today I am here as the representative of my husband. His name is Oleg Shevandin.

He is a civilian hostage who, in violation of international humanitarian law, has been in Russian captivity for more than ten years. Oleg is a civilian. He is a well‑known athlete, European and world champion in kung‑fu, coach of the Ukrainian national team and president of the Donbas Kung‑Fu Federation. He holds three advanced degrees, is a scholar and a public figure. Moreover, Oleg is a patriot of Ukraine, a person with an active civic position and great authority in society. That is precisely why the Russian Federation treacherously kidnapped him and is holding him captive.

The war entered our lives in 2014, long before the world realized the scale and horror of Russian aggression. After the occupation of Donetsk we were forced to return to our hometown of Debaltsevo, where our parents lived. Debaltseve is one of the largest railway junctions of strategic importance in Eastern Europe. That is why it was so important for Russia to seize this city. The Russians began the occupation of Debaltsevo during the second round of the Minsk peace talks in February 2015. That was when we first saw the world we knew collapsing. Literally.

When the so‑called “Debaltsevo cauldron” began, the city was left completely without electricity. In winter, at minus fifteen degrees, people were left without light or heat, without medicine, without mobile communication, water or food. They were forced to hide in basements. At that time Debaltsevo was on the front pages of the world press. And we found ourselves in the epicenter of the war. Our apartment, our business and our parents’ apartments were destroyed during the bombardments. However, my husband, an honorary citizen of Debaltseve, believed he had no moral right to leave the city at that moment and abandon the people who trusted him.

Only one “road of life” led into the city, and it was constantly being shelled. Every day Oleg, despite the danger, sometimes several times a day, brought food, medicine, candles and chargers into the city so that people could call their loved ones and say they were alive. Every day he also evacuated families with small children and elderly people from the city. It was unceasing horror. The shelling hardly ever stopped. Rockets exploded so close that the car shook from the blasts.

Was he afraid? I think yes. But fear did not paralyze him. On the contrary, it pushed him to quick action and rational decisions. He said: “People are waiting for me. I cannot let them down.” I do not know how many human lives Oleg saved, we did not keep count. But I am sincerely proud of my husband, his dignity, devotion and incredible strength of spirit.

My husband is not a soldier. He did not even have a weapon. His strength lies in patriotism, authority and the ability to support others in the most difficult moments. It is precisely such people that the occupiers cannot tolerate. That is why Oleg was kidnapped and taken prisoner. Because in occupied territories there is no need for those who are capable of showing will, supporting others and uniting the community. This is not accidental. It is a method of repression. And if such a person also has a clearly pro‑Ukrainian position, he becomes a target for the Russian regime.

That is why Oleg, a civilian, was kidnapped by the Russian military. They seized him when he was driving to help his elderly mother. Armed men in masks were already waiting for him. They stopped the car, pulled Oleg out, put a sack over his head, fastened handcuffs and drove him away together with the car to a military headquarters. First they held and tortured him in Debaltsevo, then transported him to Donetsk. Already the next day we managed to find out who organized the kidnapping and where he was. The kidnapping of a civilian by the military is a war crime under all norms of international humanitarian law.

All this was happening at a time when Russia publicly denied the presence of its troops in Donbas, passing off its military aggression as a “civil conflict.” That is why from the very beginning they tried to conceal the fact of Oleg’s capture. That is why Oleg has not been included in prisoner exchange lists and official information about his place of detention is not provided. At first Oleg was allowed to answer my calls briefly; I was happy just to hear his voice. But then even that opportunity was taken from us.

According to UN reports, Russia uses cruel torture against both prisoners of war and civilian hostages. And when Oleg refused to cooperate with the occupation authorities, he was transferred to an incommunicado regime: a regime of complete isolation from the outside world, without contact with family, without a confirmed place of detention and without access to medical or legal assistance. The regime of strict isolation is one of the most cruel and inhuman forms of deprivation of liberty, which the Russian Federation systematically applies to civilian hostages. This is not only a humanitarian tragedy, it is one of the most brutal crimes recorded against a civilian!

For this reason Oleg Shevandin must be released! Immediately! I address you with respect and faith in the power of your voice and your diplomacy. When the name of Oleg Shevandin is heard here, in Italy, it restores his presence in the world. I am not asking you for compassion. Today I am addressing a strong and mature Italian democracy, a state where the rule of law is not a formality. A country for which human freedom, dignity and rights are the highest value, not subject to compromise. That is precisely why Italy’s voice has special moral force: it is born from a tradition where the law is above everything and human freedom is the foundation of the state.

I sincerely ask you to take an active part in the release of my husband. Because ten years of Russian captivity is too much. Your voice has power. I will be sincerely grateful to you for your support and for every step you take so that Oleg Shevandin can finally return home. I heartily thank you for your attention and for your humanity.

Kostjantyn Maksimov

I, Svitlana Maksymova, mother of Konstantyn Maksymov, a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and a civilian hostage.

Before the full‑scale war my son served in the city of Tokmak, Zaporizhzhya region, in the Berdiansk eparchy. On 26 February 2022 the city was occupied. My son found himself in the terrible conditions of occupation, but he did not leave the city, because he lives with his heart and soul in God and prayer. A sense of conscience and honour did not allow him to abandon his flock, for which he felt responsible. People needed his spiritual and moral support, and as a priest he helped and supported the residents of Tokmak in every possible way, who found themselves in difficult circumstances.

During services my son did not mention Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, and in his sermons he openly and boldly prayed for the entire Ukrainian people, for Ukraine’s military, for faith and hope in victory. The Russian occupation authorities forced all priests to accept a Russian passport and sign documents agreeing to transfer to the Russian Church. Father Konstantyn did not agree with these actions of the occupiers, for which he was several times thrown into the 'pit' – a makeshift basement cell – to subdue him and force him to change his mind. But my son carried his truth in life, his Cross; he did not go against his conscience and therefore did not change his opinion.

Life went on, but every day it became worse. Later he was given conditions to leave the city, and in case of refusal threats to his life were voiced. Thus my son was forced to leave for Ukraine via Crimea, because the borders with Zaporizhzhya were already closed. On 16 May 2023, during his departure, Father Konstantyn was arrested by Russian special services at the Chongar checkpoint. From that moment all contact with him was cut off.

My maternal heart sensed trouble. I repeatedly appealed to official Russian institutions with a request to provide information about my son’s whereabouts, but each time I received the answer that such a person was not on their territory and they did not know where he was. For nine months there was no news of him. Later it turned out that all this time my son was in a basement in occupied Melitopol, and they openly lied to me, hiding the truth.

During those nine months he was cruelly tortured, subjected to electric shocks and forced to confess to acts he had not committed. After the beatings he could not walk for almost two weeks and urinated blood. On 7 May 2024 it was officially established that my son is in Simferopol Pretrial Detention Center No. 2, awaiting trial. On 2 August 2024 a trial was held, at which he was sentenced under Article 276 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (espionage in favour of Ukraine) to 14 years of imprisonment in a high-security penal colony. At present my son is in Saratov, in colony VK‑10, where he is serving his sentence.

Every maternal heart, including mine, wishes the best fate for its child! We believe in victory and the return of our children! We are proud of them, because they are true patriots of their Ukraine! The truth is on the side of the Lord, and He with His love will not abandon us and our children!

Ihor Novosilskyi

A priest from Kherson region who saved 12 Ukrainian soldiers, which led to his capture by Russia

Igor Novosilsky is the rector of St. Olha’s Church in the village of Tokarivka, Kherson region. Although his church formally belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, from 2014 he switched to the Ukrainian language in services and refused to mention the Russian Patriarch Kirill. With the start of the invasion he did not leave his parish, and on the third day of the war he helped twelve Ukrainian soldiers break out of encirclement. For this the occupiers kidnapped him and tortured him for 262 days in various prisons.

Today Father Igor is undergoing rehabilitation and decided to tell his story so that the international community knows how Russia treats pro‑Ukrainian civilians.

The account of Igor Novosilsky

🫶 “Do you want to start a UNA-UNSO here?”

“In 2014 I clearly told the bishop: ‘I refuse to commemorate Kirill.’ That’s what I did. I began serving in Ukrainian. In the first days of the invasion, after the Russian troops, the FSB came. They were looking for those who had taken part in the Maidan or protests.

They came for me on 29 August 2022 at 6:30 a.m. I was already in the church, my wife was sleeping. Russians burst into the house; one of them grabbed her by the neck and threw her to the ground, shouting: ‘Ukrainian bitch, where is he?!’ Not finding me, they ran to the church.

We were in civilian clothes, about to mow grass. Special forces surrounded us and ordered us to lie on the ground. A soldier with Buryat features aimed an assault rifle at my head and asked about the priest. I answered: ‘That’s me.’ He immediately hit me on the head, saying: ‘Do you want to start a Ukrainian People’s Self‑Defence here? And your wife runs a Ukrainian home‑school?’ I lost consciousness, hitting my head on the tiles. I came to in handcuffs, with a sack over my head, thrown under the car seat.

🫶 “We’ll take a grinder and cut off your finger”

“They took me to a tiny cell (‘the glass’). I heard the screams of other guys being tortured. Then it was my turn. Kicks to the chest, blows to the face. They made me remove my crucifix. They yelled: ‘Tell us why you’re here.’ I had no idea. The Buryat soldier said: ‘We’ll cut off your finger right now, and you’ll tell us everything.’

The prison rules were cruel: when the cell door opened you had to jump to your feet, lower your head and shout: ‘Glory to Russia! Glory to Putin! Glory to Shoigu!’ Then you had to learn the Russian anthem. I refused for five days. On Sunday an FSB officer named Andrii Spivak (codename ‘Angry’) began interrogating us. When it was my turn to sing the anthem, I said: ‘I only know the anthem of my country.’ He struck me on the spine with a long electroshock weapon (a Taser). I fell to the ground, and he kept beating me.

🫶 Saving 12 soldiers

“They knew that on the third day of the war I helped twelve of our soldiers. They were encircled on the left bank, and at night we ferried them across the Dnipro in boats. I told my wife: ‘If we both go and get killed, our children will be orphans.’ I hid them in the church basement. They were wet, frozen and hungry. We fed them, dressed them and led them out of the village in small groups. They walked for three days through the fields to escape. The Russians knew everything through collaborators.”

🫶 “You must stay here for a long time”

“During the fake ‘referendums’ in Kherson we were taken to offices with guns pressed to our heads to vote. One FSB officer once told me: ‘You speak Russian well, they told us you’re a Nazi.’ During the last interrogation they discussed whether to shoot me or send me to Donetsk. In the end they decided: ‘He must stay here for a long time.’”

🫶 Physical and moral torture

“They moved us to different places, including to Chaplinka, to a half‑ruined basement. For six months we were let out to the toilet only once a day. We used plastic bottles or bags for our needs in the cell. We did not wash for nine months. We ate leftovers from Russian soldiers’ meals. In a cell measuring 2.5 by 4 metres there were ten of us, two sleeping on each rotten bed.

The most terrible were the electric‑shock tortures. They used a ‘tapik’ (a field telephone with a hand‑crank). They attached wires to ears, nipples, or even worse, to genitals. The skin turned black, teeth cracked from the voltage. We saw people die in the cells or cut their veins out of despair.

Today I am undergoing rehabilitation. I am trying to return to normal life, but it is hard. I have lost my former cheerfulness. I told all this so that the world would learn that these people are simply inhuman.”

Serhii Lykhomanov

In 2023 my brother Serhii Lihomanov, 52 years old, was kidnapped from his home by unknown masked and armed people. He was taken away by force in front of his family.

For his daughter, who is now only three years old, this became a serious psychological shock that no child should ever face. Because of this event the girl stopped speaking and refused to eat. Doctors confirmed that she is physically healthy, but the trauma remains deep. Every evening, before sleep, she hugs a photograph of her father.

Serhii earned a degree in engineering and was sent to military service in Crimea. In 2007 he retired due to health reasons and since then has led an exclusively civilian life. He lived in Sevastopol with his wife and children. He never renounced Ukrainian citizenship: he has a Ukrainian passport, but to survive under occupation he was forced to use documents issued by the Russian invaders.

At 5:30 a.m. on 27 December 2023 armed men burst into the apartment. They separated the wife and children, confiscated phones and took Serhii away. For several hours there was no information about him.

For two months our family remained without any information. To live not knowing whether your loved one is alive or dead is a daily torture. Our mother, an elderly woman with a disability, lost her orientation and memory due to stress.

Later we learned that the Russians ‘took revenge’ on him by bringing fabricated charges of treason, sabotage and cooperation with Ukrainian special services.

On 8 October 2025 a military court in Rostov sentenced my brother to 15 years of imprisonment: five years in a closed‑type prison and ten years in a high-security penal colony.

At present Serhii is in Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Rostov. The conditions there are inhuman: overcrowded cells, constant dampness, cold, lack of medical assistance. He suffers from serious chronic illnesses, including a stomach ulcer, spine problems and a kidney tumour that poses a real threat to his life.

In occupied territories innocent civilians are arrested on false and politically motivated charges. Before the occupation there were no ‘terrorists’ in Crimea, Donetsk or Luhansk – they appeared only after the occupation.

According to human rights organizations, about 500 people have already been convicted in Crimea, and an unknown number are in isolation or under investigation. Since 2014 only 12 civilians from Crimea have been released.

According to official Ukrainian data, as of 4 November 2025 more than 6235 Ukrainians have been released as a result of exchanges, but only 403 of them were civilians.

Imagine: more than 16 thousand innocent people – men and women, mothers and fathers, children and elderly – are subjected to torture, humiliation and deprived of medical assistance only because they are Ukrainians.

Being Ukrainian is not a crime. Loving your land is not a crime.

I ask the international community, human rights organizations and people of good will to help us. Do not stay silent! Silence helps the aggressor. Help us bring Serhii home and thousands of other Ukrainian civilians who are in this hell.

Every day of delay may cost them their lives.

Bondarenko Viktor Mykolayovych

I am Sizionov Oleksandr Anatolievych, volunteer and military chaplain since 2014.

I would like to share my story and the story of my father‑in‑law Viktor Mykolaevych Bondarenko, who has been in captivity since 7 May 2024.

When the so‑called ATO (Anti‑Terrorist Operation) began in 2014, my father‑in‑law and I started doing what we could: we evacuated people from the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. As clergymen we underwent chaplain training and began visiting military personnel at the front, providing them with both psychological support and humanitarian aid.

At the start of the full‑scale invasion our city was occupied almost immediately (Russian Federation troops entered the city of Berdiansk on 27 February 2022). We did not stand aside, but began helping the city’s residents, providing humanitarian aid to those who needed it. Unfortunately, there was neither bread nor cereals nor personal hygiene items in the city.

Afterwards my father‑in‑law and I began evacuating people from Mariupol, Melekine, Volodarsk, and the Bilosaraiska Spit to Berdiansk, and then to territory controlled by the Ukrainian government, to the city of Zaporizhzhya. From Zaporizhzhya we brought various humanitarian aid which we distributed to the city’s inhabitants.

During one of these evacuations from the city of Mariupol my father‑in‑law’s car was shelled (at that moment he was carrying an 85‑year‑old elderly man and a woman with three children). The elderly man died. But we did not stop helping people. We transported people to Zaporizhzhia, and from there we delivered medicines for first aid to citizens and other humanitarian aid.

On 19 April 2022 soldiers burst into the house of my wife’s parents, put black sacks over the heads of me and my father‑in‑law, tied our hands, took our documents and phones, loaded us into military vehicles and drove us away in an unknown direction.

Interrogations and torture followed (they used electric shocks, beat us with a wooden mallet, put on gas masks, threatened execution). In the cell with me were both prisoners of war and civilian hostages. In the cell they never turned on the light, never opened the windows, it was very damp, there were not enough beds: for three people there were two beds, so I slept on the floor.

On the thirteenth day I was released. After release the soldiers offered to pay money to get back our documents and cars which they had taken from us.

After all this we returned home for a month.

When we had recovered a little strength, Viktor Mykolaeovych and I made several more trips to Zaporizhzhya for humanitarian aid for the residents of Berdiansk, because elderly people remained there who needed help and support, food and medicine.

On 26 September 2022 I and my family (my wife and our three children) left occupied Berdiansk for Kyiv, because staying there was becoming more and more dangerous.

Viktor Mykolaeovych and his wife stayed in the city, because his elderly parents were there and some parishioners of the church whom he had cared for all the time until his capture.

We, however, continued to help people in liberated territories and in cities close to the frontline. We are still doing this.

Viktor Mykolaeovych continued to be persecuted: he was periodically summoned for interrogations at the commandant’s office, they looked for a reason to arrest him, then they deprived him of his driving licence.

On 17 May 2024 Viktor Mykolaeovych Bondarenko was kidnapped near his home.

Until 29 May we knew nothing about his whereabouts or his state of health.

On 29 May it became known from Russian social media that he is in the Melitopol Pretrial Detention Center and is accused of sabotage.

At the moment it is known that he is in Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in the city of Donetsk, where he is awaiting trial.

We ask you to assist in the earliest possible release of our father and all other civilian hostages, because I, like no one else, know what it means to be in captivity where no laws apply.

I, Mariia Sizionova, daughter of the volunteer and captive priest Viktor Mykolaeovych Bondarenko, would like to add some information to the words of my husband Oleksandr.

I want to note that when my father and husband were first taken captive on 19 April 2022, the soldiers searched the whole house, damaged bicycles, took the VCR.

To our questions about where the men were being taken, we received no answer; they told us that investigative actions would be conducted.

When our younger son asked them not to touch grandpa and dad, they answered that they would play war and then return them.

When we were interrogated, I was asked whether I knew that my father and husband killed at the front.

I only answered that their weapon is the Bible and the cross. And that if the enemy needed help, they would help him, because they are priests!

Then my father was released after about 4‑5 days because of his serious physical condition. He was badly beaten (his back, legs up to the knees and the front of his chest were blue), he had very high blood pressure, he could not lie down, sleep, it hurt him to breathe.

Dad was forced to come every morning to sign. And we never knew whether he would return.

At that time he brought Sasha parcels with food and clean clothes.

My husband was released on the thirteenth day.

Even after so many days he had marks from the butt of an assault rifle or a truncheon on the front of his chest.

Sasha for a long time hardly slept at night, because, as he said, he constantly heard the screams he had heard during the torture of other prisoners.

When we filed reports about the disappearance with the police or the command, they laughed in our faces, saying that if they were not guilty they would be released, and if they were guilty they would answer for it. And that this was not kidnapping, but investigative actions.

Two years have already passed, but I still recall those days with horror and fear.

At present my father has been in detention for five months, and we know nothing about his state of health or whether detention norms are observed. There is information that my father is periodically kept in a basement in unbearable conditions.

I want to emphasize that my father has chronic illnesses, because of which he constantly needs medical monitoring, drug treatment and physical rehabilitation (hepatitis C, rehabilitation after chemotherapy, intervertebral hernias and arterial hypertension); every day spent in prison threatens his life and health.

My father, like many other political and civilian hostages, is an active civic activist and loves his country.

I ask for help in releasing my father, Viktor Mykolaeovych Bondarenko, and other civilian hostages who are unlawfully deprived of freedom and subjected to torture and cruel treatment.

Prison harms, prison frightens, prison kills every day!

A System of Terror

How Ukrainian civilians disappear in Russian prisons.

You can find two documentary films made by the outlet «Activatica» and some additional details at this link.

Contact us if you are interested in organizing screenings of the documentaries in Italian.