According to a report by the AP news agency, Russia is planning to build dozens of new prison camps in the territories it occupies in Ukraine.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are imprisoned in Russia and in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, says news agency AP in its report.
Civilians are held in official and unofficial prisons, where torture and slave labor are constant. For example, civilians are given electric shocks and beaten.
In addition, Russia has forced hundreds of civilians to dig trenches in its occupied Ukrainian territories under inhumane conditions.
AP has obtained official documents and interviewed former detainees and prisoners of war as well as Ukrainian authorities. AP has also compared information with satellite images, social media publications, government documents and copies of letters provided by the Red Cross.
According to AP, the information reveals systematic violence against civilians and imprisonment, which is against the Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Time of War.
Some of the civilians were held captive for days or weeks, but some had been missing for well over a year.
Speaking the Ukrainian language could lead to imprisonment
According to the report, there are at least 4,000 imprisoned civilians in Russia and the same number in the occupied territories. Many have been imprisoned without charge or for minor reasons such as speaking Ukrainian.
The Ukrainian administration has managed to confirm the details related to the court cases of more than a thousand imprisoned Ukrainians. All in all, the Ukrainian administration believes the negotiator Oleksandr Kononenko according to which Russia may have captured around 10,000 civilians.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin signed an order in May allowing Ukrainians to be transferred from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia.
According to a Russian administration document obtained by AP, Russia plans to build another 25 prison camps and six detention centers in the occupied territories by 2026. The document seen by AP is dated January.
According to AP, Russia can use civilians, for example, as bargaining chips in a prisoner exchange. According to the UN, there is also evidence that Russia has used civilians as human shields near the front lines.
Russia has denied that it detained Ukrainian civilians.