UKRAINE, Aug 13 — In March 2022, representatives of the illegal armed groups of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) kidnapped Dmytro and Serhii Ivanov, twin brothers from Vesele village in Kharkiv Oblast. They were then sent to Russian special services. They have been holding them captive in Russia for over three years, reported the Media Initiative for Human Rights.
Vesele village in the Lyptsi community was occupied from the first day of the Russian full-scale invasion. The brothers Dmytro and Serhii lived here with their mother, Halyna. For more than six months, the village remained under the control of the DPR representatives.
The brothers were 27 years old at the time of Russia’s full-scale invasion. They had served in the army and then worked in the agricultural business.
Halyna said that on March 25, 2022, representatives of DPR came to Ivanov’s house.
The military accused the twins of passing on information about Russian troops to the Ukrainian site. They beat up the brothers and took them to the local government’s building. The representatives of the Russian FSB interrogated them for several hours.
Halyna remembered the last time she saw her sons when the military led them away with bags over their heads and their hands tied, put them in a car, and drove them in the direction of Lyptsi, a village in the northern area of Kharkiv Oblast.
The woman kept going to the local command post to find out what happened to the twins until May 5, 2022, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced a counteroffensive.
On June 29, 2022, Halyna left her village because of the intensification of hostilities nearby. However, it was possible to go only in the direction of Russia. The Russians took her and 14 other Vesele residents to the filtration camp near Belgorod.
She moved to Estonia to live with relatives. Then, after her village was liberated by Ukrainian forces in September 2022, she moved to Kharkiv, where she continues to search for her sons.
Halyna submitted documents to search for Dmytro and Serhii, including to the representative office of the International Committee of the Red Cross. They confirmed to her that her sons are being held captive in Russia.
The woman received two letters from her sons and communicated with released POWs. From whom she learned that Dmytro and Serhii were first held in a detention center in Stary Oskol, and then in colonies in the towns of Valuyki and Alekseevka in the Belgorod region, and then sent to the strict regime correctional colony № 1 in Donskoy city in the Tula region.
On June 24, 2024, Halyna saw her sons for the first time when Russian media published a war correspondent’s report on the detention of prisoners of war.
According to released soldiers from captivity, she knew that Russians constantly abused the Ukrainian prisoners. They are beaten, forced to stand, not allowed to sit during the day, poorly fed, psychologically pressured, and forced to read Russian propaganda literature.
Also, they said to Halyna that Russians beat Dmitry severely, causing problems with his legs.
From those released this spring, she learned that her sons are still in prison in Donskoy, but in different cells.
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