Day of Remembrance for Those Tortured or Killed in Captivity in Ukraine Date in the current year: July 28, 2025

The date of the observance was chosen to mark the the anniversary of the Olenivka prison massacre. After the fall of the blockaded Azovstal Iron and Steel Works — the last stronghold of Ukrainian troops in Mariupol — on May 16, 2022, the Azovstal defenders began to surrender. Most of the defenders who did not require medical attention were transferred to a former penal colony near the occupied village of Olenivka in Donetsk Oblast. After the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the colony served as a filtration prison.

On the night of July 28–29, 2022, an explosion occurred in one of the barracks where Ukrainian prisoners of war were being held. Russia claimed that Ukraine had shelled the colony with HIMARS missiles. However, Ukraine, the UN, and most of the international community agree that the explosion was a planned terrorist attack by Russia. According to the most widely accepted theory, thermobaric ammunition was used to kill the prisoners, though the exact type of weapon could not be determined.

At least 53 people were killed and more than 130 were wounded as a result of the Olenivka prison massacre. This was the deadliest terrorist attack Russia had committed against prisoners of war since the start of the invasion, but the Azovstal defenders held in Olenivka were far from the only ones to die in Russian captivity.

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), Ukrainian prisoners of war are subjected to torture and cruel treatment, including threats, beatings, dog attacks, mock executions, electric shock torture, positional torture, and sexual violence.

These abuses are not limited to members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and volunteer formations, including foreign citizens who have joined the Ukrainian armed forces, but also extend to civilians. One striking example is Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who covered the siege of Mariupol and life in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

In July 2023, Roshchyna traveled to Russian-occupied Ukraine, presumably to report on the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant crisis. She was reported as missing in mid-August, and in April 2024, it was revealed that the Russians were holding her in custody.

In October 2024, Roshchyna’s death in captivity was announced, and in February 2025, her body was returned to Ukraine as part of exchange, marked as “unidentified male”. The body showed numerous signs of torture, and some organs (both eyeballs, part of the trachea, and the brain) were missing, likely as an attempt to obscure the cause of death.

The Day of Remembrance for Those Tortured or Killed in Captivity honors the memory of those who died in Russian captivity during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It also draws the attention of the Ukrainian and international public to Russia’s flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.