Inside Russia's hidden prison system for deserters
Platform Raam
Online report
The abandoned Petrovskaya coal mine (number 4-21) on the outskirts of Russian-occupied Donetsk in June 2022. Screenshot from Google Earth. According to ASTRA sources, the command of the 5th and 110th brigades organized a 'concentration camp' for its own soldiers in the basements of the building.
Russia operates a network of at least 23 detention sites where wounded soldiers and deserters are starved and tortured. Those who survive are sent back to the front. Independent Russian journalist Anna Snegireva researched these camps, which are often situated in abandoned buildings in Russian-occupied Ukraine. The horrendous circumstances show that the Russian repression devours its own people.
Note: This story contains explicit descriptions of torture and other violence.
Platform Raam
RAAM aims to deepen knowledge in the Netherlands about political, social and cultural developments in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, as they are of essential (geo)political significance for the European democratic legal order.
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