Abducted and tortured 56-year-old Ukrainian’s life in danger after two years of Russian captivity

It is over two years since Yuriy Sadovsky was abducted by the Russian invaders from his home in occupied Melitopol (Zaporizhzhia oblast) and there are serious grounds for concern about his state of health in Russian captivity.  There is nothing to suggest that he is receiving any medical care for conditions that have probably been caused by the torture that he is known to have endured, as well as the intolerable conditions of a Russian SIZO [remand prison] where he is seemingly held prisoner. 

The ZMINA Human Rights Centre has spoken with a friend of Sadovsky whose real name is not given for his safety. He explains that Sadovsky, who was then 54, was abducted on 16 May 2022 from his home in occupied Melitopol.  Russian soldiers arrived in two black jeeps, broke Sadovsky’s gate and tried to shoot his dog, before bursting in and carrying out a search.  They gave no explanation, but took Sadovsky away, telling him to put on warm clothes.  They also removed his telephone, computer and documents. 

For around a year, his family and friends had no information at all, and the Russian occupiers continued to lie, denying that they had seized him and claiming that they do not abduct civilians. 

His friend recalls, however, that Sadovsky was seen, eight months after his abduction, on a Russian Telegram channel. He was unshaven, had bruises on his body and was clutching at his ribs.  He was claimed on the video to have been buying stolen goods and made to ‘give an interview’, with it clear that he had been forced to read this aloud.  They learned in May 2023 that Sadovsky had been tortured with the use of electric currents (attached to sensitive parts of the body) and a vice, in which his fingers were squeezed.  It was then that they discovered that he had initially been held prisoner locally and forced to dig trenches for the invaders near occupied Tokmak.

They were later told by another person that he was imprisoned in the SIZO in Taganrog where, we know from Crimean Tatar and other Ukrainian political prisoners, the conditions are particularly appalling.  The International Committee of the Red Cross have confirmed only that he is in Russian captivity.

Even before his abduction, Sadovsky had problems with his heart and suffered from asthma for which he always carried around an inhaler.  He had to be careful what he ate, and needed to avoid fatty (and spicy) food. 

It seems clear that his health has gravely deteriorated in Russian captivity, probably because of the torture and torture-like conditions.  He has problems with both the stomach and heart, high blood pressures, and suffers from bleeding and headaches, with all of this making him unable to get up from his bunk.  It is imperative, his friend stresses, that people like Yuriy, whose state of health is critical, are rescued in the first instance, that is, released in exchanges of prisoners.

The problem is that Russia is violating international law through its abduction and imprisonment of civilian hostages, and does not normally even admit to holding them.  Danielle Bell, head of the OHCHR Monitoring Mission in Ukraine recently confirmed that Russia is subjecting over 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of war to torture and said that this torture was the worst she had seen in 20 years of monitoring places of confinement.  If Russia is willing to so violate international law in its treatment of POWs, whose imprisonment it does acknowledge, then the situation with civilians whose abduction it has never admitted to is likely to be even worse.  This was essentially confirmed by Maksym Kolesnikov, a former prisoner of war, who was released in February 2023.  He spoke of the huge number of civilians with whom he and the other POWs were imprisoned, and noted that Russia understood that it was in breach of international law for holding civilians hostage, and therefore tried to claim that they were not civilian hostages, but ‘spies’, ‘saboteurs’, etc. 

A huge number of such abductions have already been reported here, with civilians seized, tortured and held incommunicado for a year or more before the Russians finally admitted to their ‘detention’ and staged illegal ‘trials’.  Russia has, at least, admitted to the International Committee of the Red Cross that Sadovsky is in Russian captivity, but it is quite unclear whether he has any official status. 

What is tragically clear, after the deaths of at least three Ukrainian political prisoners in Russian penal institutions and the killing of prisoner of war Oleksandr Ishchenko, that any Ukrainian, and especially those in poor health, are in direct danger in Russian captivity.