Investigations

Investigation: Inside Russia's FSB prison system in Crimea
Investigations

Investigation: Inside Russia's FSB prison system in Crimea

by Olesia Bida

Two new Russian pretrial detention centers in occupied Crimea form part of a system in which Ukrainian civilians are held for months without formal charges, access to lawyers, or family contact, and detainees report torture and abuse under the watch of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), a new investigation by the Kyiv Independent reveals. Former detainees told the Kyiv Independent that their relatives sometimes did not know whether their abducted loved ones were still alive. Russia's Fed

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The situation in Russian-occupied Oleshky was dire. Now it's 'hell'

Residents in Russian-occupied Oleshky in Kherson Oblast face an escalating humanitarian crisis, as constant Russian drone attacks and artillery shelling have made it impossible to deliver essential food and medicine supplies or evacuate civilians by road. "These people need to be saved," Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, said on Sept. 16, adding that residents are desperate to escape "from this hell." "People are driven to despair and are simply walking along mined roads (to e

The aerial view of Oleshky, a Russian-occupied town in Kherson Oblast, Ukraine in a photo published on Sept.16, 2026.
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