Never-ending Prison

About a thousand Ukrainian citizens who have served their sentences for criminal offenses in Russian prisons and were supposed to be released, ended up in detention centers for foreigners and even jail-type centers designed for offenders. The detention terms are constantly being extended for these Ukrainians. Men are pressured to sign military contracts and go to war against Ukraine. They are kept in prison-like conditions, without proper medical care and with no possibility to return home. IStories journalists have spoken to Ukrainians kept in Russian detention centers.

The names of the individuals have been changed at their request for security reasons.

“The defendant may be deported after the military operation is completed.” Why Russia detains ex-prisoner Ukrainian citizens

Olha's prison term ended in January 2026, but instead of being released, she was sent to a temporary detention center for foreign nationals in one of the regions of Central Russia. Olha came to Russia as a teenager and graduated from high school and college there, but kept her Ukrainian citizenship. On the verge of her release from prison, the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) decided that her stay in Russia was “undesirable,” and the Ministry of Internal Affairs ruled to deport her. 

Deporting foreign nationals after their prison sentences is a common practice which had also been used in pre-war Russia, says Oleksii Ladukhin, a lawyer at Every Human Being. After the full-scale invasion began, direct deportations to Ukraine were halted. Because of this, Ukrainian citizens are spending months and years in detention centers. 

IStories has obtained a court ruling extending the detention of a Ukrainian citizen in one of such centers. Here is how Russian court justifies indefinitely detaining people in such conditions: “The circumstances preventing the deportation of the administrative defendant are temporary in nature; once the special military operation (an official euphemism used in Russia to describe the Russo-Ukrainian war — Ed.) is completed, the administrative defendant may be deported to their country of citizenship.” This essentially translates to indefinite detention.

According to Ladukhin, before the war deportations used to take about two weeks; everything would depend on whether the person being deported had their valid documents and on the level of cooperation with the receiving country authorities. “Courts did not routinely and massively extend detention periods like they do now, because it was possible to file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights over such practices,” says the lawyer. “In 2022, the situation changed dramatically. Neither we nor our colleagues from other organizations have had a single case where a court would reject a Ministry of Internal Affairs request to extend the detention of a Ukrainian citizen.”

Russia is using the Ukrainians subject to deportation as bargaining chips. In May 2025, during a large-scale “1,000 for 1,000” prisoners of war exchange, 120 civilians returned to Ukraine. But among them there wasn't a single person of those abducted from the occupied territories. Instead, Russia sent back those Ukrainian citizens it was supposed to deport anyway: those who had served their sentences in Russian penal colonies and prisoners from Ukraine's Kherson oblast who had been taken to Russia in 2022.

In a conversation with IStories, Mykhailo Savva, a Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties expert, described this practice as “blatant fraud on the part of Russia.”

Not less than 1,000 Ukrainians are stuck in detention centers for foreign nationals across Russia, but the exact number is unknown, says Hanna Skrypka, a lawyer with the Protection for Prisoners of Ukraine NGO. The detainees are kept in various Russian regions, and in many cases there is no way of communication for them. The detainees IStories were able to speak with say that in the Sakharovo detention center (in Moscow Oblast — Ed.) alone there are about 300 to 400 detained Ukrainians. There are about 70 of them kept in the village of Voronino in Smolensk Oblast. As more people are released from penal colonies, the number of detainees is growing. 

Olha has been kept in the center for more than four months. According to her, some of the people there have had their detention term extended up to seven times. “No one is giving us any information. It’s agonizing. The people are burned out and desperate. We’re treated like subhumans. They say deportation is impossible and that I’ll be stuck here until the end of the ‘special military operation.’ It sends shivers down my spine,” she says. Oleksii Ladukhin says one of the people who reached out to him spent more than three years at the foreigners detention center.

“I’ll die here without treatment”. The detention conditions

The centers where the Ukrainians are kept are designed for short-term detention only. The conditions there are no better than in penal colonies — and sometimes even worse. The food supply and the access to personal hygiene and medical care are highly problematic issues there. 

In one of the regions of the North Caucasus, there are no vacant places in the foreign nationals detention center, so the Ukrainians awaiting deportation have been sent to a jail-type facility (а “detention center for people under administrative arrest” — Ed.). “It’s a regular jail with the bare minimum of amenities. No outdoor time, no medical facilities — nothing at all. No beds, just bunks. A cell for four people. Unsafe and unsanitary conditions. No soap, no toothbrushes, no hygiene products. No doctors. The food supply is terrible. They installed a shower in April; before that, we had to wash ourselves in a basin,” describes Mykola, one of the detainees.

According to Mykola, he had a blood pressure spike in winter; an ambulance was called, and the nurse administered his shot carelessly, which caused an abscess. The man had to be taken to the surgery room by ambulance again. He was soon discharged, even though the wound had not yet healed (the photos are at the disposal of the editorial staff). “They said that they wouldn’t give me any medication because I have no state health insurance. I offered to buy the medicines with my own money, but they kicked me out of the ward anyway. The wound is still bleeding,” the man says. The inmates at the facility are not provided with medical care although some of them suffer health issues including stomach ulcers, gastritis, and hypertension.

Another person IStories spoke with, Yaroslav, describes similar conditions at another detention center in one of Russia’s central regions. Yaroslav was released from a Russian prison in 2025 and has been held at the detention center for five months now; his cellmates have been there for over a year. The center is overcrowded.

“No one knows what to do with us; there is no more space,” says Yaroslav. “The police bring in new people. They are sent away. ‘Take them wherever you want,’ they say.” 

There are six Ukrainians in Yaroslav’s cell. Just one shower for 30 people. The inmates are only allowed to be outside (in a small courtyard with high walls and a metal grate overhead) for an hour a day and are allowed to use the phone for just an hour a day, too. “We’re just stuck in here, locked up” Yaroslav continues. – “We're asking them to maybe let us shovel snow in the winter, just to move around and stretch our legs.’ But no, they tell us we have no right to work.”

Yaroslav is HIV-positive and needs to take medication every day, but the police won't provide it: “I’m fighting [to be deported to Ukraine] because I feel trapped. Without treatment I’ll die here.” 

“Locked up for no reason and waiting for hell knows what.” How indefinite detention works

Once in three months, the Ukrainians are taken to a court that extends their detention at the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “We have a lawyer; he explains it all [why detention cannot be extended indefinitely] clearly, the judge agrees with him, leaves, comes back, and still orders the detention to be extended for another three months,” Serhii, one of our interviewees, describes the typical procedure. 

Oleksii Ladukhin explains that appeals do nothing to speed up the deportation process: “According to the Russian prosecutor’s office and the superior courts, if the number of possible detention extensions is not specified in the legislation, there's no limit. And so there are no violations.” 

Back in 2025, Serhii was to be deported to Ukraine via Georgia, but Georgian border guards did not let him pass because his passport had expired. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs left him in a jail-type detention center in one of the North Caucasus regions, as there were no spots available at the local detention center. He has been there for a whole year since his release from prison. 

In his case, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the courts are at least trying to follow the formalities. Some detainees are even less lucky. Andriy, another Ukrainian currently kept at a foreigners detention center, told IStories that the order to place him there had expired back in August 2025: "I appealed to the administration, explaining that I have been kept here unlawfully. For me to stay here, there should be a court order with a specific term. They don’t understand. I have filed a lawsuit with the court. No response. Another lawsuit with the prosecutor’s office. No response. I called them. A prosecutor came here in the fall of 2025 and said they would look into it. They’re still looking into it.” 

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that keeping people in detention centers for foreign citizens long-term constitutes a violation of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits unlawful confinement, Oleksii Ladukhin explains. “Detention is permissible when they are actually carrying out the deportation, when the authorities are taking active and good-faith steps to implement it: transferring documents, coordinating the location and time of deportation and conducting negotiations. If the process has stalled, a person cannot be detained indefinitely. This is a severe violation of their rights,” he says. 

“It’s very hard: being locked up for no reason and waiting for hell knows what,” Serhii confides. “My family in Ukraine is having problems; I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again. It’s very difficult mentally. The prison walls are suffocating, and the whole situation is overwhelming.

“When they are fed up, they’ll sign up as cannon fodder.” War recruitment at the detention centers

All of our interviewees note that the former prisoners — and primarily those who had lived in the now-occupied territories of Ukraine before coming to Russia — are being recruited to fight against their own country. “We’re hearing that the general idea is 'let's keep them locked up, and when they are fed up, they’ll sign up for the ‘special military operation’ as cannon fodder,” says Yaroslav, who has been kept at the detention center for six months since his official release. 

At a detention center in one of the regions in Central Russia there are people who have been expecting deportation for over a year and a half, two Ukrainians told IStories. According to them, the only way to get out that was offered to those detainees was to sign a military contract with the Ministry of Defense and go to war against Ukraine. 

Andriy, our interviewee kept in the Caucasian jail-type detention center, confirms: “There are instructions from above to offer [the military contracts]. Right now, the guys are just losing their minds from the hopelessness and from no way out in sight, and they’re even ready to sign the contracts. But in the jail-type detention center, they aren’t even given that opportunity. In [another region], people have been taken away to fight in the ‘special military operation’; a couple of people left when I was there". 

Not all the Ukrainians interviewed by IStories want to return home. Many men are sure that upon their return they will be forcibly mobilized without being allowed to see their families. Those who do not want to return to Ukraine are either trying to seek asylum in Russia, are applying for Russian passports, or looking for opportunities to leave via a third country at a family invitation or for work, but all they get is detention extensions.

“He wasn’t even ill before, but now he’s disabled.” Fate of those stranded at the Russian-Georgian border

Men who do not want to return to Ukraine are citing the consequences of the August 2025 mass return, when Ukraine organized the evacuation of its citizens who had been stranded in a basement on the Russian-Georgian border through Moldova. 

A few days later, reports emerged that those who had returned were sent to TCRs (territorial recruitment centers, a Ukrainian name for military enlistment offices — Ed.) after a three-day quarantine. Those deemed fit for service were mobilized. Hanna Skrypka (Protection for Prisoners of Ukraine) confirmed IStories that 40 of the 65 returnees had been mobilized.  

Protection for Prisoners of Ukraine published an open letter calling on the Ministry of Defense and the Security Service of Ukraine, as well as other Ukrainian government agencies, to consider changing the return procedures. For example, they requested to allow people to see their families and receive medical and psychological assistance upon returning. According to Skrypka, they have not received any reaction to this letter. 

Currently, 19 of those who refused to return to Ukraine in August 2025 are remaining in the border gray zone. They are still living in a windowless basement and are entirely dependent on charities that occasionally bring them food and humanitarian aid.

“It’s a concrete room with no ventilation. We can’t predict when the next food supply will arrive, so we constantly have to save food. There have been times when we spent a whole week with no food,” says Oleksii, a Ukrainian citizen who has been living in the basement for nearly a year. 

The Georgian Red Cross branch told the Ukrainians that the aid program for them had ended. The branch’s deputy secretary-general, Kakha Mamuladze, confirmed IStories that the program had been shut down back in December because international donors had stopped funding it. The Tbilisi Volunteers organization, which supports Ukrainians in Georgia, cannot operate fully due to Georgia’s newly introduced “foreign agents” law and is forced to find workarounds to continue helping those stranded at the border, said Maria, its head.

The most serious problem is the lack of medical care. One man became disabled while stuck at the border. He had an eye infection, and his fellow basement dwellers tried to call an ambulance. They had reached out to the Ukrainian consulate, but no help arrived for several weeks. “By the time we managed to get him to the hospital, all that the doctors could do was remove his eye. He wasn’t even ill before, but now he’s disabled. What kind of medical care is this? We don’t even have painkillers for headaches and toothaches, not to mention those of us who need a more serious treatment or medications,” Oleksii says. 

Among those in the basement there are people with hepatitis and HIV. They need daily treatment, but it’s very difficult to access. “Antiretroviral therapy medication isn’t available over the counter, and the Georgian HIV care center can’t give medications out to unregistered and untested patients. But they can’t get tested at the border. We’ve managed to find a way to deliver the medications several times and we hope we’ll be able to do it again soon,” says Maria from Tbilisi Volunteers. 

In November 2025, Andriy Bilyk, a representative of the Ukrainian Embassy in Georgia, visited the Ukrainians remaining in the basement. He explained that technically the consulate could issue the new passports for them, but this would require approval from the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice as well as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine (a recording of the meeting is at IStories’ disposal). A month later, the embassy sent the approval document to the basement, but by that moment the Security Service of Ukraine had not issued passports to any of those citizens.

Pavlo has remained in the basement for almost a year. He says he is already losing hope of ever getting his passport and leaving. “They constantly throw something at us to keep us from bothering them. Two or three weeks go by, and we start calling and writing to them again. I wonder if I’ve got 50 kilos of weight left. I feel terrible. There’s no air here; we’re just suffocating. The only thing left to do is to shoot myself — I don’t know what other way out there is.” 

IStories have sent inquiries to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner of Russia, and the Presidential Council on Human Rights asking what steps the Russian authorities are taking to end the indefinite detention of Ukrainian citizens. We have not received any responses from these entities. The Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ukrainian Embassy in Georgia also have not responded to our inquiries as of the moment of publication.