Report identifies jailers, officials behind alleged torture prisons in Ukraine

A BBC World Service investigation has identified three men accused of abusing detainees in Russia‘s alleged network of torture prisons in occupied Ukraine, shedding new light on a detention system that survivors say was marked by torture, sexual violence and inhumane treatment.

The investigation names Yurii Temerbek, Ruslan Yeriomichev and Andrey Spivak as officials allegedly involved in the abuse of civilians held in detention centres across occupied Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian prosecutors have opened criminal proceedings against the men, while the BBC reported that they now appear to be living in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine.

For 64-year-old Liudmyla Huseinova, the investigation offers hope that those she blames for years of suffering may one day be held accountable.

“For three years and 13 days of my life, my soul and body were crippled,” Huseinova said, recounting her detention after she was abducted outside her home in October 2019.

She alleged that Temerbek, a former Ukrainian traffic police officer who later joined Russian-backed separatists, was among the men who arrested her and later watched as she was sexually assaulted at the notorious Izolyatsia detention centre in occupied Donetsk.

Huseinova described a regime of constant intimidation, saying detainees were forced to stand for long hours, denied proper sleep and subjected to repeated abuse.

“I have never heard such terrible screams before,” she recalled of her first days in captivity.

She also accused another prison official, known as “Yermak” and identified by investigators as Ruslan Yeriomichev, of beating her and forcing her to eat uncooked food mixed with dirt and rubbish.

“I spat it out, but there was some left. The taste of this food will stay with me the rest of my life,” she said.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has described the torture and ill-treatment of civilians in detention facilities in occupied Ukraine as “systematic and widespread.” Former detainees have reported beatings, electric shocks, mock executions and sexual violence, while families were often given little information about the whereabouts of those detained.

Working with Ukrainian open-source investigators, the BBC used survivor testimonies, official documents, social media accounts and media reports to identify the alleged perpetrators. The investigation found that Temerbek appears to be living in Russia’s Rostov region, while Yeriomichev is believed to remain in occupied eastern Ukraine. Spivak, a former Russian prison officer accused of overseeing a detention facility in Kherson, has reportedly returned to the Russian city of Omsk.

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Another survivor, 42-year-old sailor Oleksii Sivak, alleged he was tortured after being detained during Russia’s occupation of Kherson in 2022.

“There was torture with objects. On the genitals, electric current,” Sivak told the BBC.

The investigation also mapped the scale of the detention network, identifying 93 sites in occupied Ukraine where civilians and prisoners of war were reportedly held between 2023 and 2025, along with another 102 facilities inside Russia. Many of the sites were described as unofficial detention centres operating from former government buildings, hotels and garages.

The BBC said it contacted Temerbek, Yeriomichev and Spivak for comment, but none responded. The Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom said Russia had “consistently advocated respect for international law and the rule of law” and that allegations of crimes committed during the conflict were being documented and investigated.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ukrainian prosecutors say they have documented more than 400 cases of conflict-related sexual violence against civilians and charged dozens of suspects, most of whom have been tried in absentia.

For Huseinova, however, the issue goes beyond exposing identities.

“For me, justice is not revenge,” she said. “For me, justice is the decree that these people intentionally, deliberately did what they did. I want them to be punished by law.”

(BBC News)