This article discusses Ukrainian civilian prisoners and hostages who are gradually returning to Ukraine. According to various estimates, between 10,000 and 20,000 such Ukrainian citizens are being held in Russia. And once the celebrations marking their return have died down, the former prisoners will face a series of difficulties that not all of them will find the strength to overcome.

Victor (name changed) is one of many civilian hostages who have returned from captivity. Unfortunately, his stay in Russian torture chambers has had a negative impact on him, including mentally. Now, his behaviour and judgements reveal a certain childishness. For example, he can become very upset if a piece of candy accidentally falls on the floor. Clearly, he has a long rehabilitation process ahead of him.

At the same time, Victor must go through another equally difficult process — obtaining legal status as a person who was illegally detained in Russian prisons and camps. Simply put, the status of a former prisoner. To do this, he must submit documents to a special interdepartmental commission. And not only submit them, but also prove that he was indeed held by Russian torturers.

Victor's friends doubt that in his current state he will be able to go through all these twists and turns on his own, so they are already looking for volunteers to help. Once he receives confirmation from the commission, he will be able to claim financial compensation and certain benefits. However, the main thing he lacks at the moment, namely housing, is still out of the question. The situation is quite dire in this regard.

Legislative issues
Today, Ukraine has a law in place entitled ‘On Social and Legal Protection of Persons Deprived of Their Personal Liberty as a Result of Armed Aggression against Ukraine.’ The idea behind it is to provide systematic protection for both civilians and prisoners of war who have been illegally deprived of their liberty by Russian occupiers. In particular, the law stipulates that they are entitled to financial assistance and a number of benefits.

However, in order to claim assistance and benefits, a special interdepartmental commission must establish the fact of unlawful deprivation of liberty. Then, former prisoners of the modern Russian Gulag will be able to receive a one-time ‘start-up’ payment of 100,000 hryvnia, plus another 100,000 hryvnia for each year of captivity.

Compensation for legal assistance and deferral from mobilisation for civilians are also possible. In addition, it is possible to obtain a certificate for 30,000 hryvnia for professional education and credit holidays, meaning that penalties and fines for the period of illegal imprisonment will not be charged.

But here's the problem: this law was passed before the great war. And it was written for the realities of the ATO, when only hundreds, not tens of thousands, of Ukrainian citizens were suffering in Russian captivity.

The full-scale invasion turned everything upside down. Since 2022, a network of filtration points, torture chambers, pre-trial detention centres and colonies in the recently occupied territories has been operating at full capacity. In such conditions, the old procedural requirements (in particular, ‘proving the occupier's motive’) seem anachronistic.

In addition, the law refers to two different groups of prisoners: military personnel, who usually have certificates from military units, and civilians, whose evidence may be fragmentary, gathered, so to speak, bit by bit. In practice, this gives rise to two very unequal processes within the same legal framework.

Prisoner status must be proven
The situation is further complicated by the fact that this status is granted by a specially created body — a special interdepartmental commission comprising representatives of various ministries and agencies, as well as several civil society organisations. It is this commission that considers applications from prisoners of war and civilian hostages and establishes the fact of their illegal imprisonment as a result of Russian aggression.

The commission collects and verifies evidence — from official certificates to testimonies and materials from human rights defenders — and decides by vote whether a person is recognised as having been held captive. But one of its main problems can probably be described as “too many cooks spoil the broth”: it seems that the commission includes all possible state bodies, but there is no specific body responsible for its activities. There is only a conditional “umbrella” — the Ministry of Development. And a lot of questions about the legislation that regulates its work.

Olga Skrypnyk, chair of the Crimean Human Rights Group, one of several NGOs that are part of the commission, said:

It is very difficult for a person to prove that they were detained and held by the Russians. Previously, in Crimea and in the territories that were occupied until 2022, it was possible to obtain at least some documents, such as a conviction. But after the full-scale invasion, the situation changed dramatically: in the newly occupied territories, there are massive human rights violations, completely groundless detentions, torture, and a whole system of torture chambers. And so, a person who applies to the commission must somehow prove that they were held there. Obviously, the occupiers did not give them any certificates confirming that they had been tortured and held captive. But the commission still has to establish this fact, because this decision gives them the right to receive payments. Therefore, we have to gather information from many sources. I personally call the applicants, I call the witnesses we know, who are also documented by us. Perhaps they saw the detainee and can confirm it. Overall, it is very painstaking work."

Ihor Kotelianets, chairman of the board of the public organisation ‘Association of Relatives of Kremlin Political Prisoners’:

"The absurdity of the situation lies in the fact that the occupier does not explain their motive, and the person who went through all this may not know it. The commission assesses whether the person did something, not what the occupiers' motive was for detaining them. This is because there is a hidden political motive in most cases. Whether a person keeps a Ukrainian passport or speaks Ukrainian, they identify themselves with Ukraine and are Ukrainian.

Russians usually conceal the fact that they are illegally detaining people. Accordingly, most civilians are released not through exchange, but on their own. The occupiers themselves may release them after some time in detention because they no longer need them, have used them, or for some other reason. Or they may have already served their illegal sentence and been released. After that, these people usually try to leave the occupied territory, enter Ukraine and prove the fact of their illegal imprisonment.

And it is often difficult to prove that you were illegally detained by the Russians for a certain period of time, and not just hiding somewhere or going on holiday. This is why a commission is needed, because evidence must be gathered. The members of the commission review all this and decide whether it sounds convincing enough.

According to Igor Kotelianets, there may be several times more illegally detained persons than those who are officially exchanged:

‘We understand that the unofficial figure is much higher, because people simply do not know about these mechanisms and often do not file such applications; they do not even know that they are victims.’

State administration as a generator of chaos

Another problem is that even with the influx of prisoners as a result of official exchanges, it is difficult to cope. In addition, the recent reorganisation of everything and everyone in the state administration stands in the way of considering applications. For example, due to the liquidation of the Ministry of Reintegration, the commission suspended its work for a certain period of time. (We wrote about this problem in the article ‘Generator of random ministries. How constant government reformatting harms Ukraine.’)

Olga Skrypnyk: "The commission under the Ministry of Reintegration last met in November 2024 and resumed its work at the Ministry of Development only in February this year. This means that people waited at least four to five months for their applications to be considered. As a result, a huge number of applications that had not been considered accumulated during this time, and they are still being considered. This means that there are people who have been waiting for the commission's decision for at least five to six months."

The Russians' ‘dirty game’
The question arises: is this whole procedure for obtaining prisoner status necessary at all? Unfortunately, the answer is unequivocal: yes, it is. It also happens that Russia dilutes the lists of civilians who are to be exchanged with Ukrainian citizens convicted of criminal offences there, or those who have already served their entire sentences and were simply about to be released. Ukraine is forced to accept them, but this takes away resources and places for war hostages.

Ihor Kotelianets: "At one point, there was a large exchange — a thousand for a thousand. There were also quite loud statements that this was the largest exchange of civilians, because more than 120 people were released there. But the thing is that the Russians did not send us civilians who were imprisoned specifically in connection with the war, but Ukrainian citizens who were serving sentences for real crimes and whose prison terms had expired. They should have simply been released, but the Russians placed them in so-called CTUIGs (centres for the temporary detention of foreign citizens — Ed.) and forced them to write statements requesting exchange. And then they were actually exchanged. In other words, our side requested certain people who had been illegally imprisoned, but completely different people were brought for exchange. And Ukraine, of course, was forced to accept them, because they are still Ukrainian citizens.

And plus, if we hadn't accepted them, there would have been a major smear campaign by the Russians, saying that we were refusing to take our civilians. We warned the state about this, because we were monitoring the situation and knew that since around January 2025, the Russian Federation has been holding ordinary Ukrainians who are not involved in the war in the CTUIG and forcing them to write such statements. Exchange is a very difficult way to secure release, because the Coordination Headquarters still has to find someone else to offer Russia in exchange for our civilians. Therefore, it is a very expensive tool that we cannot use all the time, because we do not have that many people to give to the Russians.

Separate the two streams of prisoners
Certain functions related to the identification of individuals must be preserved. But the mechanism itself obviously needs to be more transparent and simpler.

The commission is very overloaded with statements from prisoners. In these circumstances, there is one logical solution: to separate the two streams of prisoners — military and civilian.

Olga Skrypnyk: "In general, the commission tries to meet once a month in order to have time to consider everything. If, for example, we have exchanges of military personnel, there can be 400 or 500 applications.

It is easier with them because they have all the supporting documents from military units, the Coordination Headquarters, the Security Service of Ukraine, and so on. On average, we have at least 80 civilians per commission, and sometimes even more. And they need to be considered individually. Logically, these should be separate processes. We usually have the most information about military personnel. Therefore, their cases can be reviewed quickly. Civilian cases must be reviewed separately so that they do not have to wait each time until we review all the others.

The housing problem
A one-time payment of 100,000 hryvnias only seems substantial at first glance. For a person who suddenly finds themselves free with literally nothing, not even their own clothes, it is not that much money. There are also payments for each year of imprisonment, but they are not paid immediately; you have to wait for them. And all this time, you need to eat, clothe yourself and, most importantly, live somewhere. And the housing situation is very bad.

Lyudmila Yankina, chair of the board of the Civil Society Protection Foundation ‘Civis Fortis’:

"Most of them have no relatives in Ukraine, because they are mainly people whose families and homes remain in the occupied territory. They have nowhere to live after their return, and the state does not provide them with housing; the most they can get is a dormitory. They also have no support from social workers; no one helps them except us or other non-governmental organisations.

When we ask the state whether there should be social worker support, the state responds that yes, there should be. But 100% of our clients say they didn't even know about this possibility.

According to the law, people released from unlawful imprisonment are entitled to temporary housing. This right is granted to those who do not have their own housing, or whose housing is occupied or destroyed. But in reality, this right is still not spelled out in subordinate legislation. According to Olga Skrypnyk, there are certain provisions in the law and so on, but they are not being implemented. And there is no clear addressee whom you could ask about this now in the ministry or in the government.

Lyudmila Yankina: "When each group of people arrives, there is a collapse. They are placed in hospital for 21 days for examination, and a few days before they are due to be discharged, government agencies start calling us and saying that we urgently need to find and pay for accommodation for these people. They ask if we can help.

And you realise that they knew in advance how many people there were and how much accommodation was needed. Why weren't contracts signed with hotels or estate agents? It would have been possible to come up with a system to provide accommodation for people returning home. But there isn't one.

There was a situation when I received a call from former prisoners who had been released and said that they had been placed in a hostel where the living conditions were even worse than they had been in a Russian prison.

When I arrived and went inside, I felt like throwing up from the smell and what I saw. Cockroaches, rubbish... I asked the manager or owner of the hostel, ‘How can you allow your place to be so dirty?’ And she said, ‘What's the problem?’ And I understand that she really doesn't see how dirty it is there. Of course, that same evening we found them normal accommodation and moved them.

"We surveyed 380 local communities, 310 of which indicated that they had no housing at all, no housing stock. Most communities also do not have a developed procedure for distributing such housing.

Accordingly, today it is necessary to conduct audits and assemble housing funds in those communities where they exist. Identify premises that need, for example, revitalisation or repair, which can be used for temporary housing. It is also necessary to communicate with donors who are currently ready and willing to support Ukraine's recovery efforts," says Ihor Kotelianets.

According to Lyudmila Yankina, the first thing that needs to be established is the route of the civilian hostage after their return, because in reality one of the main problems is the lack of coordination between state services. ‘The registers are not synchronised, and different state bodies refer these people to different organisations for support. All this can be duplicated, and some people are left behind altogether, with no one to help them,’ she says.

Texty.org.ua spoke with several prisoners who had spent a considerable amount of time (more than seven years) in Russian prisons and were released only recently.

‘We need to have some kind of roadmap.’
Kostyantyn Davydenko worked as a private appraiser. At the request of clients from the unoccupied part of Ukraine, he travelled to Crimea to appraise property left there. He was illegally detained by the FSB in 2018 and convicted of ‘espionage.’ He served his entire sentence — seven years — but was not deported to Ukraine. He was held in a deportation centre for another six months, after which he was finally exchanged:

"They brought us to Kyiv and put us in a hospital. There, we were examined, diagnosed and treated. But it turned out that we were completely left to the doctors with all our problems. The doctors ran around trying to arrange for passport officers to come to us, and a nurse took us to the passport office. But that's not their job. Doctors have their own, let's say, business. And their own competence.

Now I have been discharged and, according to the law, should be sent for rehabilitation. But there is no one who can give me this referral. The doctor in charge of the department where we are staying cannot issue such a referral; it is not within his competence. And there is no authority that would do this centrally.

A person who has served four or five years in prison has completely lost their social skills. They have no possessions whatsoever, except for the hygiene kit that the regional council and volunteers brought to the hospital. They have nothing: no home, no job, lost qualifications. Some have health problems, both physical and mental.

I have solved this problem. Again, I solved it myself thanks to my friends. I have friends here who help me.

But many people here are completely alone. They are offered accommodation in a hostel. But imagine what it is like for a person with mental health issues, which developed during their time in captivity, to live in a hostel. It is a very traumatic process.

There are NGOs that can help you. But you still have to contact these NGOs. You have to find an NGO, agree that it will take you under its wing and help you. The state does not participate in this at all. And that is a big problem.

In fact, everything is currently done manually. Again, there is no specific person who would come and say, ‘Good afternoon, my name is Ivan Stepanovich, ask me any questions you may have, and I will resolve them.’ There is no such system, but it is needed. Because right now, Ms. Vereshchuk is personally performing the function of this entire system. And she is really trying, there are no questions about that.

But this is not her job. She has many other tasks, and we understand that. She left her personal phone number, and we call her. ‘Good afternoon, Ms. Iryna, we have this problem.’ Although we understand that she has many, many other things to do. But she is the only one.

Look, Iryna Vereshchuk, for example, arranged a joint meeting with us, the prisoners, and representatives of state agencies and local authorities.

At this meeting, she tells the Donetsk Regional Council: pay for people's accommodation. And they reply: we don't have the funds for that, it's not in the budget. Vereshchuk tells them: find the money for it. And they say: we can't find it. And in the end, they start thinking about how to find the money somewhere. And so it is with everything.

That's why we need to have a roadmap in place, setting out where to go and how to get there, who is responsible for what. Because, for example, imagine that the Pope agrees with the Russian Federation that it will transfer seriously ill people or women. I heard that there are over two hundred seriously ill people on the list. So now they will transfer them. And then what? It will be a collapse. They brought fifty people here, and it's already a collapse.

‘It's very difficult to adapt’
Yuriy Shapovalov, 61, detained on 11 January 2018. A resident of Donetsk, he worked as a doctor. He ran a social media page where he covered what was happening in Donetsk during the occupation from a pro-Ukrainian perspective. This became the basis for his arrest and accusation of spying for Ukraine. He was sentenced to 13 years in a strict regime colony. But thanks to an exchange in August 2025, he was released:

"We stayed in the hospital for about a month after my release. I had a slight delay — I had a Ukrainian paper passport, which was valid, but for some reason the migration service said that it still needed to be confirmed, to establish my identity. I had to provide some other document with a photo or find two people who would confirm my identity. Once I received a new document, an ID card, everything started moving forward.

Then we all waited for the commission meeting that determined the status of persons who had been held captive. The meeting took place on 2 September, and as a result, I received this status.

I still have an unresolved issue with restoring my education and employment records. This is a really serious problem that requires effort, but I have already been told what the restoration algorithm is. I graduated from medical school in Donetsk back in 1987, and all the archives remained in the occupied territories.

Regarding my diploma, I must first contact my university, which has moved to Kropyvnytskyi. I have already learned that they did not transport the archives, but I must obtain an official document from them stating that they cannot provide me with information about my education. Then I must contact the Ministry of Education and Science, which will most likely also give a negative response.

Only then can I take these official refusals to court and provide witnesses who can confirm that I did in fact study somewhere and worked as a doctor. Only then can my education document be restored. That is what I have been told.

So far, I have only taken the first step — I wrote an appeal on my university's website a few days ago. I have not yet received a response.

I received a one-time payment of 100,000 hryvnia. In addition, I received 20,000 hryvnia in aid from the Kyiv City State Administration. There was also assistance from several charitable foundations and public organisations that also care for us.

As for the payments of 100,000 for each year of imprisonment, Iryna Vereshchuk promised us that we would receive them in September.

Regarding housing, the Ombudsman's Office offered to help me and two other exchanged doctors rent a three-room apartment in Kyiv for three months with the help of some fund. However, it turned out that not all of my colleagues were satisfied with this option. One wanted to bring his family from the occupied territories, another wanted to bring his brother, who needs care.

But I had a good friend who invited me to stay with him. So now I am living with him temporarily. However, the Ombudsman's Office assured us that our issue remains on the agenda and that we will receive a more serious proposal regarding housing within this month.

Personally, I am not demanding, I have no family, I am alone, and I would be happy with some kind of modular town or something like that. Of course, after these eight years in prison, I want to have some personal space where I can be alone. Once I was free, I did not even expect that it would be so difficult psychologically. While in captivity, I thought that when I was released, there would be no need for any adaptation or rehabilitation, that I would immediately be able to rejoin active life. No, it doesn't work that way; it's very difficult to adapt.

And when I was released after the exchange, it was a huge shock for me to learn that many people we didn't even know were aware of my situation. And I felt this support. In the first few minutes after our release, employees of the Coordination Headquarters got on our bus. One employee saw me and said, ‘Oh, you're Yuriy, I know you, we fought for you.’ I was shocked by this. Then I heard similar words from many, many people.

But we must not forget that Russia is still holding many of our prisoners, both military and civilian. In the same Makiyivka colony where I was held, there were guys who had been imprisoned since 2017, since 2018, and one even since 2015. I can still see their faces when we said goodbye to them. They need to be brought out of there.

Read the article at:

https://texty.org.ua/articles/116017/z-kativni-u-hurtozhytok-cyvilnyh-polonenyh-pislya-zvilnennya-chekayut-novi-vyprobuvannya/?src=main&fbclid=IwY2xjawN_AvZleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF6Q2xyVmVZcUlzTFhtOVdVc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHhkt6MAhLPWodrntjf6RtgLGu9hGWolLD0WdwkL3dtTouKnrGGsdABPopqKg_aem_0Q2LdIzBN-H5C1TQpPzzTA

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