As part of peace talks in 2025, Russia and Ukraine carried out two large-scale prisoner exchanges. However, Ukrainian civilians convicted in Russia on charges of “espionage” or “treason” are rarely included on the exchange lists, even as hundreds of people continue to go missing in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. Civilians are often taken away in handcuffs with bags over their heads, and months or even years later, their relatives learn that they had been held in secret prisons — or even underground pits — where they were beaten, tortured, and starved. Some detainees are suspected of sabotage, but more often they are simply regular civilians, many of them women, whose only “crime” was having a relative in the Ukrainian military. Three Ukrainian women who were abducted from their homes, subjected to torture, and convicted in Russia as alleged Ukrainian spies told their stories to The Insider.

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Three Ukrainian women who were abducted from their homes, subjected to torture, and convicted in Russia as alleged Ukrainian spies told their stories.

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Now we know: they came for her at home. They tore the place apart looking for phones — anything that could be “evidence.” At first they kept her and a few others in a pit. Just a hole dug in the ground. When it rained, the pit would flood. There was nothing down there. She spent several months like that. We know a few people who were held with her — they were later returned to Ukraine. They told us my mom was incredibly brave. She kept everyone’s spirits up. They said they were like a family in there — with her at the center of it all.

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Down in the basement they sat me on a chair, taped me to it with duct tape, and started asking questions. If I answered, they’d shock me. If I didn’t, they’d shock me as well. If I told the truth and they decided it was a lie, they would give me another jolt of electricity. They asked where I grew up, what my nationality was, how many phones I had, who in the Ukrainian army I’d spoken to. The questioning went on all night and into the next day, until about 5 p.m. Eventually they made me sign some papers. I was still blindfolded, I couldn’t see what I was signing. They only lifted the blindfold just enough for me to see where to put my signature.

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Four months later, we found her sister Natalia in the morgue. She was beaten badly, exhausted, her hair turned gray. Her body was in such a condition that she couldn’t be buried in an open coffin. She had simply been tortured to death in a basement. The morgue staff said they just found the body, but the official cause of death was listed as heart failure.

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