In the occupied Kharkiv region, the Russians have set up a network of 29 torture chambers for civilians

In the temporarily occupied territories of Kharkiv Oblast, Russian military forces established a system of illegal detention of the civilian population. It consisted of transit and main detention centers through which the Russians transported detainees.

Human rights activists managed to document 29 such locations and identify approximately 800 people who had passed through them. Some civilians were transferred between different detention centers after their detention, while others were deported to Russia.

According to him, the Russian occupiers systematically converted buildings of various ownership statuses into sites for the illegal detention of civilians, where people were interrogated and tortured.

Although these sites were located in different parts of the region—with the distance between some of them reaching 150 kilometers—they shared common organizational characteristics. In most cases, active or former police stations were used for this purpose. 

“Typically, the torture chambers had at least two zones—one for detaining civilians and one for interrogating them,” Agayan noted. 

Transit and Main Torture Chambers

According to human rights activists, transit torture centers were used for the initial detention and so-called “filtering” of civilians. There, people were detained, interrogated, and tortured. 

“Afterward, the Russians might release a person—though this was less common—or transfer them to a main torture center or deport them to Russia,” explained a representative of Project Expedite Justice. 

The main detention centers were used for the long-term detention of civilians. According to the researchers’ findings, the transfer of people between different locations indicates that these facilities were interconnected and functioned as a single system. 

The division of responsibilities among Russian agencies also attests to the organized nature of this system. According to human rights activists, FSB representatives were responsible for deporting detainees or issuing relevant orders, while representatives of the so-called “L/DNR” and the Russian National Guard guarded the detention centers and transported people between them.

The Russians concentrated most of these sites in strategically important centers—Izyum, Balakliya, Kupiansk, and Vovchansk. During the occupation, these cities were used as administrative or logistical hubs. 

Who Was Targeted by the Occupiers

According to eyewitness accounts, Russian military personnel deliberately targeted men of draft age, veterans and their family members, State Migration Service employees and law enforcement officers, volunteers, people displaying Ukrainian symbols, as well as those suspected of “sabotage” or considered “informants.”

Civilians were also taken to torture chambers after being reported to the occupiers by their neighbors.

The human rights defenders’ report is based on 114 testimonies from victims and witnesses, documented facts, and materials from open sources. In total, the investigators carried out about ten missions to the Kharkiv region and identified approximately 800 people who had been held in places of unlawful detention.

Truth Hounds conducted their first mission to the de-occupied Kharkiv region on September 20, 2022. In just five days, they documented about 80 cases of unlawful detentions, disappearances, and torture. 

Ashot Agayan, a representative of Project Expedite Justice, spoke about this during the presentation of the report “Organized Brutality: The Russian Network of Illegal Detention and Torture in the Kharkiv Region.”

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