‘When the Signal Fades’: Highlights from the LMF 2026 side event on civilians in captivity

Following the discussion at the LMF 2026 side event, guests queued up for a VR installation. Inside was a reconstruction of a cell where Russia unlawfully detained Serhiy Ofitserov, a civilian from Kherson. The Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR) created it based on Serhiy’s sketches. He had drawn the space around him to preserve his sanity.

The abduction of civilians from the occupied territories was the central theme of the panel of ‘Civilians in Captivity: When the Signal Fades’. Symbolically, the event had to be moved to a shelter due to the threat of a mass attack across Ukraine. The discussion was moderated by Sasha Dovzhyk, Head of INDEX: Institute for Documentation and Exchange. The pivotal question of the conversation was: what happens when a person exists for their family, but disappears for the rest of the world?

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The System Conceals Civilians

Iryna Zaporozhets from the NGO ‘Civilians in Captivity’ spoke about her father, who was abducted by the Russian military in 2022 in the occupied part of the Kharkiv region. Her father had tried to keep a mobile tower running under occupation so that people could stay in touch with their relatives in Ukraine-controlled territory.

Russia officially denies holding Iryna’s father. At the same time, occasional fragments of information still leak through the Russian correspondence system for prisoners. The family sent letters to various possible detention sites, and the system sometimes glitched: first, a notification would appear stating that the letter had been delivered to the addressee, but a few hours later the status would change, claiming the person had been transferred to another prison. According to Iryna, this is how Russia attempts to conceal civilian captives, yet even within this closed system, information accidentally leaks out informing relatives that a person is alive and in captivity. This uncertainty becomes a distinct form of torture for both the families and the captives themselves.

It has been 1,521 days since my father was abducted by the Russian military. I wouldn't say he isn't in the system. The system simply tries very hard to hide these people. If there is no information, it's impossible to prove that a person is in captivity. And that means they can do whatever they want to them.
Iryna Zaporozhets

Before the full-scale invasion, Maksym Butkevych was a journalist and human rights defender who researched the detention conditions of the Kremlin's political prisoners. In 2022, after joining the Armed Forces of Ukraine, he found himself in Russian captivity. What shocked him most was that the violations of international humanitarian law were not accidental.

‘It was obvious that this was not a chain of isolated incidents. It is a consistent policy. They even told us: “No one knows where you are. No one knows your conditions. And that means we can do whatever we want to you,”’ he recalls, referring to the staff of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service. ‘The lack of international monitoring only reinforced this sense of impunity. We waited for a visit from a Red Cross representative. Then we stopped waiting. Eventually, we started joking about whether they would ever show up.’
Maksym Butkevych

For several months, Butkevych was held as a prisoner of war, but later the Russians fabricated a criminal case against him and sentenced him to 13 years in a penal colony. From time to time, Maksym shared cells with abducted civilians. Often, Russia simply detains them — without bringing charges or even conducting interrogations.

Compiling the List of Captives

The Media Initiative for Human Rights has been documenting cases of unlawful civilian confinement since 2016. Lyubov Smachylo, head of the analytical department, emphasised that behind every figure stands a specific individual.

According to our data, Russia has unlawfully imprisoned at least 2,500 Ukrainian civilians. These are someone's parents, children, husbands, or wives… They are held in inhumane conditions, completely cut off from the outside world, which inflicts even greater suffering on them.
Lyubov Smachylo

As of May 2026, the MIHR has documented over 4,000 cases of civilian abductions in the occupied territories, with 2,500 people still remaining in captivity. However, the real figure could be significantly higher, says Lyubov Smachylo: the policy of incommunicado detention — meaning in complete isolation — makes it impossible to compile a comprehensive list of civilian captives.

According to the analyst, holding civilians cut off from the outside world serves several functions simultaneously, including concealing Russian war crimes and creating an atmosphere of fear in the occupied territories to make the population easier to control. This is why human rights defenders are seeking new ways to address this issue — through advocacy campaigns, as well as artistic and immersive projects.

This Didn't Start in 2022

INDEX programme curator Olesya Yaremchuk reminded the audience that Russia began abducting civilians long before the full-scale invasion. The book The Free Voices of Crimea, co-edited by Olesya, documents the stories of Crimean journalists and political prisoners persecuted by Russia since the occupation of Crimea in 2014.

Initially, there was a great deal of attention on this topic. But later, it felt as though it was placed behind a glass wall. It's not that the topic of Crimea faded into the background, as the Ukrainian authorities consistently declared the goal of returning to the 1991 borders, but it was behind a veil. However, we have no right to forget about Crimea. Even though 2024 marked the tenth year of Russian occupation, and it might seem to some that reclaiming the peninsula is impossible.
Olesya Yaremchuk

For journalist, working on the book meant long-term communication with the prisoners' families and corresponding with people in Russian prisons. Children have been growing up without their fathers for ten years now, she emphasised.

Restoring the Signal

At the beginning of the discussion, Sasha Dovzhyk recalled the mobile tower that Iryna Zaporozhets’ father tried to keep running so that people could stay in touch. This story became a metaphor for the entire conversation.

The Russian system of detaining Ukrainian civilians operates through isolation: taking a person away, depriving them of contact, information, protection, and visibility. The task of human rights defenders, journalists, and families is the exact opposite — to restore this signal before the person disappears entirely.

Summary by the Media Initiative for Human Rights

Photo: Tanya Bots

This publication was compiled with the support of  Peace Direct. Its content is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the organisation.