CrimeaSOS: enforced disappearances most often end in deaths of active opponents of occupation
3 / 07 / 2025
Most of the people who were found dead after enforced disappearance were people with a pro-Ukrainian stance who resisted the occupation. This was stated by Oleksii Tilnenko, project coordinator of the NGO “CrimeaSOS”, in a conversation with human rights activist Oksana Pokalchuk and war crimes documenter Dmytro Afanasiev for the new episode of the podcast “When Justice Comes.”
“A separate category of enforced disappearances is what has happened in Crimea in 2014. It concerned people who openly showed their pro-Ukrainian identity and were ready to engage in non-violent resistance. And in fact, the largest number of victims who died were among this category,“ – Oleksii Tilnenko noted.
He also emphasized: “As for some people who had the status of forcibly disappeared, the occupiers initiated criminal cases based on falsified charges and, thus, these people became political prisoners. Unfortunately, not everyone lives long enough to receive the status of political prisoners – sometimes their lives are cut short without a verdict or investigation. This is considered an extrajudicial execution.”
In addition, 44 cases of enforced disappearances were recorded in Crimea before the full-scale invasion. Then the main goal of the occupiers was to intimidate the population and suppress any resistance. After February 24, 2022, the pattern remained, but new, more cynical motives appeared: economic – abduction of entrepreneurs with a ransom demand; informational – abduction of opinion leaders or influential people who are forced to cooperate with the occupation authorities and become mouthpieces for russian propaganda.
This topic is being made relevant by a new wave of disappearances in Crimea: during May–June 2025 alone, at least several people disappeared. Among them are Khatizhe Buiukchan, Serhii Hrishchenkov. On June 2, according to media reports, russian security forces abducted a couple in occupied Sevastopol – Oleh and Nataliia, and took their 9-year-old child to a shelter.
Recall that after the start of the full-scale invasion, Crimean women increasingly become victims of enforced disappearances due to open pro-Ukrainian views or accusations of sympathies for Ukraine. Read more about this in our article at the link.