Translated material
There's nothing but violence now
In one of the Kherson colonies, dugouts are now being made for Russian troops. The other housed a military hospital
There are three correctional colonies and one pre-trial detention center (SIZO) in the Kherson region. After the war began, they all continued to work: according to the laws of Ukraine, it is necessary to take out prisoners with an armed escort, and the police and employees of the Security Service of Ukraine left the region in the last days of February.
As a person working in the correctional system in the Kherson region told Kholod (for security reasons, he and other interlocutors of Kholod asked not to be named), the leadership of the correctional institutions tried to get instructions from Kiev in late February, but all they had It is said that it is to act within the framework of circumstances and at one's own discretion. At the same time, cooperation with the occupation authorities, according to the laws of Ukraine, can be considered collaborationism. Ukrainian human rights activists pointed out that the authorities failed to cope with the evacuation of employees and prisoners who were in prison at the time the war began.
According to two interlocutors of Kholod, at the end of March, Russian FSB officers and the military began to visit the heads of correctional facilities. They wanted to “get to know each other and offer help” – food and medicine that are brought to the region from Russia through Crimea, as well as armed guards. According to Kholod’s interlocutors, only Yevgeny Sobolev, the head of the Northern Colony No. 90, which is located in Kherson itself, immediately agreed to cooperate with the occupation authorities. After that, prisoners in the Northern colony began to make dugouts for the Russian troops (these are wooden fortifications for trenches - there are woodworking shops on the territory of colony No. 90) and repair military equipment. In May, prisoners were forced to write applications for the issuance of Russian passports - this was reported by the Kherson media, and this was confirmed to Kholod by an employee of one of the colonies in the Kherson region.
25 kilometers from Kherson is Daryevskaya colony No. 10 (commonly called Daryevka), and in it there is a hospital, which is considered one of the best prison hospitals in Ukraine. on the territory of Daryevka settled In mid-May, the prisoners from there were taken to neighboring colonies - instead of them , Russian troops , and the hospital was converted into a military hospital. Finally, another colony, Golopristanskaya, is “not particularly touched” by the Russians, according to one Kholod interlocutor, because convicts suffering from tuberculosis are imprisoned there.
Under the pretext of a riot, the Russian military broke into the territory of the Kherson pre-trial detention center in May. One person was killed
Kherson pre-trial detention center is located in the center of the city. At the same time, as Kholod's interlocutors say, for several months its leadership refused to cooperate with the Russians. During the time that has passed since the beginning of the war, some prisoners have expired the term of the measure of restraint, but since the courts in the region have not been working since February 24, people are simply constantly being extended the term of arrest. At the end of May, the preventive measure was extended for the prisoners for six months, until the end of November.
Food is delivered to occupied Kherson only from Russia - since the administration of the pre-trial detention center refused to cooperate with the Russian authorities, the food supply in the detention center was supposed to run out at the end of May. But back in the middle of the month, Russian state media reported that the “Russian military police” in Kherson prevented a riot in the pre-trial detention center and an attempt by prisoners to escape.
One of the employees of the correctional institution of Kherson, with whom Kholod talked, says that the riot in the pre-trial detention center arose after the Russian military began to threaten prisoners with reprisals against their relatives. Relatives of the prisoners in the pre-trial detention center claim from the words of their relatives that there was no rebellion at all: the Russians broke into the detention center just like that.
According to Kholod’s interlocutors, upon entering the pre-trial detention center, Russian soldiers used stun grenades, beat the prisoners in the cells, and killed one prisoner by shooting “point-blank in the head.” “Everyone was in shock, the Russians came in, they wanted to cause chaos,” says one of the relatives of the prisoners. “But [acting head of the pre-trial detention center Igor] Guryakov did not allow this to be done. They went into the cells, face to the floor, they said: one of them will rock, we will put them all. One was killed for no reason."
According to Kholod's interlocutors, the purpose of this action was to demonstrate the "new order" to the prisoners. After the “riot”, the Russian military took four people to an unknown destination: Igor Guryakov, the head of the operational department of the pre-trial detention center Yevgeny Usachev and two prisoners - Vakhtang Adamashvili, the “watchman” of the detention center (this is how authoritative prisoners who monitor the implementation of informal prison rules are called) and his cellmate. In the meantime, the employees of the pre-trial detention center were no longer allowed to work, and the prisoners sat on bread and water for several days.
Shortly after the kidnapping, RIA Novosti published a video in which Guryakov said that the riot in the pre-trial detention center was a planned action by the SBU to destabilize the situation in Kherson. The head of the pre-trial detention center said that the SBU recruited him back in 2015 (Guryakov did not specify what this recruitment consisted of if he worked in the same law enforcement system in which the SBU exists), and on the eve of the riot he was instructed to open all the cells. Kholod's interlocutors are sure that the video was recorded under pressure from the Russian military.
On May 14, the abducted were returned to the pre-trial detention center, and the employees of the detention center were again allowed to work. According to relatives of prisoners, conditions in the pre-trial detention center have deteriorated significantly since mid-May: they stopped taking people out of their cells for walks, they began to feed them worse.
Employees of correctional facilities are transferred to new jobs and ruble salaries. But there are still not enough staff.
After the “riot” in the pre-trial detention center, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine sent all correctional institutions of the Kherson region to idle time: employees may not go to work, but continue to receive a salary in the amount of 2/3 of their salary until the end of martial law. (Until May, ATMs in the region continued to operate; now, according to Kholod’s interlocutors, hryvnias are cashed out on the black market, but you can still pay with them.)
Prior to the announcement of downtime, employees worked as usual. Those who decided to evacuate from the occupied territory wrote leave applications and left the region. According to Kholod’s interlocutors, in May the employees who remained at work received an ultimatum from the occupying authorities: they must quit by the end of the month and write a new application for employment in the penitentiary system of the Kherson region or be left without work.
Kholod's sources say that about 80% of the workers refused to cooperate with the Russian authorities. Those who agreed received a salary in rubles in June, and it was much more than in Ukraine: for example, a junior inspector received 44,000 rubles, and before that he earned 10,000 hryvnias (about 28,000 rubles at the pre-war rate). However, as one of the former employees of correctional institutions reported, citing colleagues, in July the salary decreased significantly.
Employees of the colonies wrote applications for employment to the head of colony No. 90 Yevgeny Sobolev: in May, the occupying authorities appointed him head of the region's penitentiary service. On June 18, a bomb exploded near his car - Sobolev was hospitalized with broken legs. According to Ukrainian media, citing intelligence sources , he was still undergoing treatment in early July; Ilizarov apparatuses were put on his feet, which help to splice broken bones. Sobolev did not appear in public space after the assassination attempt .
Kholod's interlocutors claim that now the Kherson colonies do not have enough staff. Employees from the self-proclaimed DNR and LNR began to be invited there.
In the absence of the police in Kherson, lynching began. Russian 'military police' now beat up suspects
According to local residents, in the first hours of the Russian invasion, the Kherson police left the city. Only a few territorial defense forces remained in the city - volunteers who volunteered to protect the city - but their resistance was soon crushed by the Russian military. Already on February 25, the Russians established a curfew in occupied Kherson, and checkpoints appeared on the streets, where armed soldiers checked documents, inspected cars, and checked phones. “They could have been shot for violating the curfew,” says one of the residents of the city. The city was empty in the afternoon, only armed men and military vehicles with Z signs were on the streets.
At the end of February in Kherson, they began breaking into shops and stealing food from them. At first, the people of Kherson fought the marauders on their own: as a local resident said, those who got caught were tied to poles or trees and beaten. Soon, according to two of Kholod's interlocutors, the military banned lynching, obliging residents to report crimes to the "military commandant's office." in the Kherson chat . appeared At the same time, on July 1 , a photograph of a man taped to a tree with tape
According to local residents, the main method of punishing perpetrators of public disorder, which is used by the so-called military police, is beatings and threats. “Guys come, put them on their knees, point their guns and say: if you do something like that again, no one will find you. People can be taken away for 15 days. Someone can be well brushed aside,” one of the residents of Kherson describes the actions of the “policemen”.
Since mid-May, recruitment began in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kherson region, controlled by the Russians. The announcement stated that “former employees of the internal affairs bodies of Ukraine are invited to serve, including participants in the ATO / OOS ( anti-terrorist operation / operation of the combined forces, meaning military operations in the Donbass. - Approx. “Cold”) who did not commit crimes ". Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko said that Vladimir Lipandin, the former police chief of the Cherkasy region, was appointed to lead the Kherson police, under whom in 2014 was violently dispersed the local Maidan and journalists were beaten. In Ukraine, Lipandin was put on the wanted list - since 2014 he lived in the Crimea. Lipandin began his work, according to Gerashchenko, by checking new employees before being hired at Polygraph.
For the first time, the newly formed police of Kherson entered the service on June 12: the officers kept order at a concert organized by the occupation authorities on the occasion of the Day of Russia. The telegram channel of the newly formed department reported that “boys and girls proudly carry the inscription “Russian police” on their chevrons.” In July, there was news that law enforcement officers in the region were learning to work according to Russian laws.
Judging by the telegram channel of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kherson region, the police are now mainly engaged in the search for and seizure of weapons and ammunition from citizens, car accidents and cases of looting. Local residents say that a lot of traffic police officers with car numbers of the DPR and LPR have recently appeared on the roads of Kherson.
According to Kholod's interlocutors, a system of denunciations is now flourishing in the region: pro-Russian citizens complain about Kherson residents who speak out against the war - they write denunciations against teachers, sellers in the markets and their own acquaintances. “If this is a harmless pensioner, they just have a conversation with her. If it’s a man, they’ll take him [to a temporary detention center], torture him, make him learn the Russian anthem, beat him up a couple of times,” says a local resident. “Apart from physical punishment, there is nothing now.”