In the temporarily occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, local lawyers increasingly refuse to work on cases of detentions and abductions: it’s too dangerous, they say, and legal assistance is practically impossible. Because of this, the families of the disappeared are left defenseless — there are neither lawyers nor access to official information about the whereabouts of the detainees.
This was told to Ukrinform by the chair of the board of the Crimean Human Rights Group, Olha Skrypnyk.
Human rights defenders note that the situation in these territories in 2022–2025 has turned into a “grey zone.” Unlike in Crimea, where relatives can sometimes obtain at least some case materials or confirmation that a person is being held in a pre-trial detention center (SIZO), in the occupied left-bank part of Kherson region it is often impossible to establish even the fact of detention. Local authorities and the occupiers’ security forces fully control information and obstruct independent documentation.
During the deoccupation of the right-bank districts in 2022, rescue teams and the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) found evidence that some of the abducted civilians were taken to other regions, including to Crimean pre-trial detention facilities. It was in such cases that it was possible to obtain at least some information about people’s fates. However, in many cases relatives have no confirmations at all and do not know where to turn.
Human rights organizations and relatives of the disappeared call on Ukrainian institutions, international organizations and the media community to step up efforts to search for the missing, document cases of unlawful detentions, and create mechanisms of legal support for those who remain in the occupied territories.
Note that, over the nine months of 2025 in the Kherson region the occupiers abducted at least 25 local residents.