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“Weighs no more than 45 kilograms”: new details of the brutal detention of journalist Dmitry Khylyuk in Russian captivity have emerged.
Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Khylyuk, arrested by the Russian occupiers in March 2022, is still in prison in the Vladimir region of Russia.
Dmytro Khylyuk, an employee of the UNIAN news agency, was detained on March 3, 2022, in his village north of Kyiv, at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since then, he has been in Russian captivity.
New details about the journalist’s condition are reported by the organization “Reporters Without Borders” (RSF) according to Khylyuk’s former cellmate Igor, who spent a year in the same cell with the journalist.
According to Igor, a Ukrainian prisoner of war released in May 2024, Khylyuk is being held in the IK-7 colony in the village of Pakino, Vladimir region.
Deprivation of food, beatings, forced campaigning sessions – Ihor told RSF the appalling conditions that about fifteen Ukrainians, both civilian and military, endured in this cell. Igor described how he and his comrades were forced to walk naked in the prison yard in the middle of winter in minus 10°Celsius. During the inspections, it was not uncommon for jailers or special services (FSB) to release their dogs on prisoners. Ukrainians were regularly forced to sing the Russian national anthem and were often deprived of food. According to Igor, now Khylyuk probably weighs “no more than 45 kilograms”.
“We have asked Russia to provide evidence that he is alive, and we have obtained – on our own – new evidence of ill-treatment of journalist Dmytro Khylyuk and his fellow detainees. Not only does Russia continue to lie about his fate, but it also encourages the humiliating, inhumane treatment of prisoners. In other parts of the world, hostages held by criminal or terrorist groups are treated with greater respect and dignity. We call on the Russian authorities to release Khylyuk, and the Ukrainian authorities to redouble their efforts to pull him out of this hell,” the journalists urged.
Since his arrest, RSF has been working hard to document and reconstruct the path of his imprisonment: from the cold cells at Hostomel airport, not far from his home, where he was first held for several days; to the Novozybkov pre-trial detention center, where he was first imprisoned; to the Paquino penal colony, where he has been held since May 2023.
On March 19, 2024, the Z-regime finally admitted, after two years of denial, that Khylyuk was holding Khylyuk on their territory.
According to the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR), a Ukrainian NGO dedicated to the protection of journalism and human rights, at least 4.000 Ukrainians are currently in captivity. These civilians, including Khylyuk, are almost completely excluded from the exchange of prisoners of war.