Russia: Enforced Disappearance of Ukrainian Teacher

Russian authorities have forcibly disappeared a teacher they detained in Ukraine in late March 2022, Human Rights Watch said today.

Russian forces in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region accused the teacher, Viktoria Andrusha, of sharing information with Ukrainian authorities about Russian troop movements. When Russian forces withdrew from the area days later, after their month-long occupation, they forcibly transferred Andrusha to Russia. She is one of a number of Ukrainian civilians to have apparently been forcibly disappeared since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Russian authorities should urgently reveal the whereabouts of Andrusha and the other victims of enforced disappearances,” said Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Russian authorities should end incommunicado detention, and release all civilians being held arbitrarily.”

Andrusha’s family was told through unofficial channels weeks after she was detained that she is being held incommunicado in a detention facility in Russia’s Kursk region. Authorities at the facility have denied holding her, and Andrusha’s lawyer was denied access to the detention facility. Andursha’s detention, followed by the refusal of the Russian authorities to acknowledge that detention or disclose her whereabouts, makes her a victim of an enforced disappearance.

Russia should urgently acknowledge Andrusha’s detention and provide information on her whereabouts and the legal basis for her detention, Human Rights Watch said. Russia should release her, allow her to return to Ukraine, and in the meantime fully respect protections afforded to her as a civilian including granting her access to a lawyer of her choosing.

Andrusha, 25, is from Stary Bykiv village in the Chernihiv region and teaches at a school in Brovary, in the Kyiv region. She was in Stary Bykiv when Russian forces took control of the area. Her sister, Olha, told Human Rights Watch that Russian forces searched their family’s home on March 26, four days before they withdrew from the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, claiming that the family might be cooperating with Ukrainian forces. Olha Andrusha denied this allegation.

During the search, the Russian forces looted money, electronics, and boxes of household belongings. In the process, Olha said, they found Viktoria’s phone and alleged that she had been sending information about Russian troop movements to Ukrainian intelligence agents. They then took Viktoria to a boiler room in the neighboring village of Novy Bykiv, which they were using as a makeshift detention facility, and held her there incommunicado for two or three days before taking her away, said two residents held there at the same time who were later released.

On March 27, Russian military servicemen returned to the family home demanding to see all of Viktoria’s personal documents. During that visit, they detained Viktoria’s mother, saying she had “raised Viktoria badly.” Olha said the soldiers also told their mother that they had taken Viktoria to see the bodies of Russian soldiers they claim were killed because of information Viktoria had allegedly shared. Russian forces held their mother for three days in a house occupied by Russian forces. She was only able to return home when the forces left the area on March 31.

On June 7, Human Rights Watch interviewed a civilian whom Russian forces detained in Ukraine, forcibly transferred to Russia, and held at a pretrial detention facility in the Kursk region from March 23 to April 18. He returned to Ukraine as part of a prisoner exchange. He said that men and women were held separately in the facility, with women held in cell 13. He had heard from other prisoners that there was a woman named Viktoria from Brovary who had been accused of revealing Russian military positions.

The man shared a cell with 12 other male Ukrainian civilians, some of whom were told by interrogators that they were being held for “preventing implementation of the special military operation.” While he was there, he said, neither he nor anyone else in his cell had access to a lawyer. Once released, he learned that his family and other families had sent lawyers to the facility, trying to get access to those detained, but they had been denied access.

A Russian human rights lawyer, Irina Biryukova, told Human Rights Watch that on April 25 she had attempted to enter the pretrial detention facility where Andrusha was allegedly held. When Biryukova showed her lawyer’s ID and a legal document identifying her as Andrusha’s lawyer, the facility’s administrative staff told her she needed to speak to the facility’s director. The director then asked her what she knew about Andrusha and “the acts perpetrated by her.”