“Crimean” Architecture of Enforced Disappearances: Who Is Abducting Residents of Occupied Ukrainian Territories and How

Systematic abductions in occupied Ukraine are linked to Russia’s security forces, with victims detained without legal grounds, often tortured, hidden from relatives, and later charged after forced confessions and coercion.

Abductions have become a systematic and coordinated practice used by Russia as a tool of control in the occupied territories of Ukraine. This conclusion was reached by representatives of several human rights organizations following a comprehensive study dedicated to enforced disappearances in annexed Crimea, as well as in the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. To learn about typical abduction scenarios, the role of Russian security forces in these processes, the two levels of “concealment” of information about the victims, and what happens to people after they are abducted, read this Krym.Realii report.

The report was prepared by experts from two Ukrainian Human Rights Houses and the NGO “Crimean Process,” based on documented testimonies of victims of enforced disappearances and their relatives. In addition, the study draws on expert interviews with representatives of organizations specializing in enforced disappearances, analysis of open-source information, video materials, and official responses from the occupation authorities.

Taken into the unknown

“Those carrying out abductions usually operate in groups, use unmarked vehicles, and employ other elements of disguise. Surveillance footage, including in the cases of Iryna Danylovych and Ervin Ibragimov, demonstrates a high level of coordination, speed of action, and minimal time spent at the scene,” the report’s authors note. They conclude that such features rule out randomness and point to the professional nature of these operations.

They also emphasize that typical characteristics of the perpetrators include black or camouflage uniforms without insignia, balaclavas, automatic weapons, and a categorical refusal to identify themselves or state the reasons for the detention.

At the same time, the most common scenario involves abduction from the victim’s home following a search and the seizure of all digital devices, as well as documents. As a rule, no paperwork explaining the legal grounds for the search is left behind. Access to a lawyer is denied. The victim is taken away for “verification” without any clarification of where they are being taken or under what legal status. After that, the person disappears, while security agencies and penitentiary institutions deny any involvement in the abduction.

Among other common methods of enforced disappearances, experts identified abductions at checkpoints, on the street, or from vehicles. Quite often, car owners are abducted with the involvement of traffic police officers, who stop the targeted vehicle.

“After the stop, a minibus with masked individuals arrives, and the victim is transferred into it. A bag is placed over the head, tape is used to restrain, and physical violence is applied during transportation,” the authors of the study describe this practice.

Who is behind this?

Notably, all sources unanimously point to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) as the key executor of disappearance operations. An analysis of official responses from the occupation authorities showed that “all known cases were carried out by representatives of the FSB of the Russian Federation — primarily officers of the FSB Directorate for the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, and in some cases by representatives of the FSB Border Service and unidentified FSB units.” Experts also noted a link between some abductions and the arrival of FSB operational groups from Moscow in the occupied regions.

A map compiled by human rights defenders of key detention sites where abducted individuals are held in the occupied territories of southern Ukraine also confirms the leading role of the FSB in enforced disappearance processes. Among the identified locations where abductees are taken are a basement prison in the building of the Crimean FSB Directorate, Simferopol Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 2 — described in the report as fully controlled by the FSB — as well as basement facilities at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is under the control of Rosatom and the FSB.

Coordinated silence

The fact that enforced disappearances are not isolated “excesses on the ground,” but a unified and coordinated policy, is evidenced by the consistency across different agencies at all levels when it comes to providing information about the abducted.

“One of the most compelling pieces of evidence of the systematic nature of enforced disappearances is the coordination with which all occupation authorities conceal information from the relatives of the disappeared,” the researchers state.

They also identified two levels of concealment. At the first level, law enforcement bodies in the occupied territories ignore appeals from relatives regarding abductions. Instead of conducting full-fledged investigations, police officers refuse to open criminal cases. Meanwhile, military investigative departments, which receive some of these materials, ignore requests from relatives altogether — throughout the entire period of the study, not a single substantive response from military investigators has been recorded.

At another level of concealment, the FSB — the Russian security service — denies its involvement in abductions. The agency either cites the protection of personal data or simply claims that no detention of the abducted individuals was carried out in accordance with the law. At the same time, the FSB never responds to inquiries about detentions conducted “outside the legal framework.” In response to any inquiries, representatives of the Russian security service consistently use the same template reply. For example, in one case, 10 identical responses from the agency were recorded over eight months following the abduction.

Torture, confessions, and legalization

The authors of the report note that no less than 90 percent of abducted individuals are subjected to torture. In the overwhelming majority of documented cases, torture is used at the early stages following abduction, often within the first hours or days of a person’s detention in isolation. Thus, the use of violence is a premeditated element of the system rather than a reaction to the behavior of detainees, the report concludes.

“Torture is used to rapidly break a person psychologically and physically, to create a state of complete control, and to eliminate any resistance. The methods of torture are standardized and repeated regardless of the detainee’s identity or the region, which is further evidence of the institutional nature of this practice,” the study states.

Human rights defenders also note a general pattern in which a person is first abducted and held without any legal basis, and only after obtaining the necessary “confessions” is officially detained and charged. Of particular concern is the practice of forcing victims to name five individuals with pro-Ukrainian views in order to stop the torture. According to experts, such methods have a profoundly destructive effect on trust within local communities, which is one of the objectives of the occupying forces.

EMPR