FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT: Prisoners Stranded in Occupied Crimea — Russia Paralyzed

A People Under Occupation for Twelve Years

The history of the Crimean Tatars under Russian occupation is a history of systematic persecution. Since 2014, their Mejlis—the community’s representative body—has been banned by the occupying authorities. Dozens of their leaders have been detained and convicted on charges of “extremism” or “terrorism,” which all international human rights organizations denounce as politically motivated.

This people, who had already endured the Stalinist deportation of 1944—when Stalin ordered the expulsion of the entire Crimean Tatar community—is once again facing targeted repression. Putin’s Russia has inherited the worst Soviet practices and is applying them to a people who have never recognized the occupation of their ancestral homeland.

200,000 War Crimes Recorded

Charlotte Surun, the British chargé d’affaires in Ukraine, stated during the ceremony commemorating Victoria Amelina in Lviv that the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office had recorded more than 200,000 crimes since the start of the full-scale invasion. Each crime represents a human being. The Crimean Tatar political prisoners, detained for years under conditions their families describe as degrading, are included in these figures.

These 200,000 crimes are not abstract statistics. They are case files, evidence, and testimonies collected by Ukrainian prosecutors who are working under bombardment to ensure that international justice will one day have the necessary arsenal to bring those responsible to trial. This little-known work is crucial for remembrance and for the future.

Two hundred thousand crimes have been documented. And meanwhile, European judges are debating procedures. There is a staggering disconnect between the urgency of the situation in Ukraine and the slowness of international institutions—and this is a disgrace for which we must collectively take responsibility.

A Telling Shortage

The fuel shortage in occupied Crimea is not a temporary blip. It is the predictable result of a Ukrainian strategy consistently put into practice. Strikes on oil depots, refineries, and supply routes have gradually reduced Russia’s ability to maintain normal logistical operations on the peninsula. Gasoline has disappeared from the open market. This is not just a figure of speech: Crimeans are experiencing it firsthand every day.

For the local population—whether Tatar, Ukrainian, or Russian—this shortage is a concrete economic reality. Cars cannot run. Businesses cannot operate normally. Public services are disrupted. The occupation apparatus, which claimed to bring prosperity, has proven incapable of ensuring the basic functions of a regional economy.

Trams at a standstill in Yevpatoria

A telling detail: the trams in Yevpatoria have stopped running. This coastal city, known for its beaches and Soviet-era luxury hotels, symbolized in Russian rhetoric Crimea as a reclaimed and revitalized tourist destination. Today, its trams are at a standstill. It was not the war that brought these trams to a halt—it was the logistical collapse of the Russian occupation administration, which is unable to maintain the energy supply the peninsula needs.

Every stopped tram, every immobilized prison van, every empty fuel depot is a fragment of the same story: that of an occupation project crumbling under Ukrainian pressure. Russia can still maintain its troops in Crimea. But its ability to normally administer the territory it has stolen is deteriorating at a pace that can only accelerate.

The trams in Yevpatoria at a standstill: that is the image I will take away from this week. Not the missiles, not the explosions—just silent tracks in a city that Moscow claimed to have liberated. Russia no longer administers Crimea. It occupies it, and that is different.

Prisoners Forgotten by International Law

The political prisoners held at the Simferopol detention center find themselves in a doubly absurd legal limbo. Russia is detaining them under Russian laws enforced in a territory whose annexation is not recognized by the international community. They cannot benefit from the standard protections afforded to prisoners of war—because, officially, they are civilian detainees. Nor can they benefit from the safeguards of Ukrainian civil law—because they are being held beyond the reach of Ukrainian authorities.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has had extremely limited access to detainees in occupied Crimea. International monitoring missions are virtually nonexistent. These men and women are, in effect, invisible to international protection mechanisms. And their prolonged confinement in a prison where conditions have already been documented as degrading exacerbates a situation that is already intolerable.

The Duty to Remember and Exert International Pressure

The publication of this information by Eskender Bariiev and Euromaidan Press is in itself an act of resistance. Documenting, naming, and bringing these issues to light—this is the work that enables the international community to maintain pressure, however minimal, on the occupier’s behavior. Every report, every article, and every testimony constitutes a piece of evidence that will one day be presented in court.

Ukraine and its allies have a responsibility not to let these prisoners disappear into silence. The prisoner exchanges that have taken place since the start of the conflict show that releases are possible—but they require political will, painstaking negotiations, and sustained international attention. We must maintain that attention.

Eskender Bariiev speaks for those who cannot speak for themselves. That is what witnesses do—they bring to light truths that tyrants would like to keep secret. In a world that often looks the other way, this work of documentation deserves our utmost respect.

The Inability to Contact Loved Ones in Ukraine

Beyond the direct suffering of political prisoners held in occupied Crimea, their situation causes a ripple effect of suffering among their families who remain in free Ukraine. Under the Russian occupation regime, communication between detainees and their loved ones is limited, filtered, and often cut off. Families in Odessa, Kherson, or Kyiv may go weeks without news of their son, husband, or father detained in Crimea—unable to know whether he is alive, in good health, or in immediate danger.

This prolonged uncertainty is a form of systematic psychological torture—documented by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and groups advocating for the Crimean Tatars. It is deliberate: by keeping families in the dark, the Russian occupation authorities amplify suffering beyond prison walls and extend their psychological control over thousands of people in free Ukrainian territory.

Advocacy Organizations Face Institutional Obstacles

Organizations such as the Crimean Human Rights Monitoring Group, Crimea SOS, and the Crimean Tatar Rights Coordination Team have been documenting cases of political detainees since the 2014 occupation. Their work is made extraordinarily difficult by the lack of physical access to Crimea, the closure of normal communication channels, and the risks to their sources on the ground. Every piece of information about a detainee must be verified through indirect channels—sometimes months after the events occurred.

Nevertheless, these organizations play a crucial role in preserving the institutional memory of the detentions. Their painstaking documentation constitutes a database that ICC prosecutors, international lawyers, and prisoner exchange negotiation teams will be able to use when Crimea returns to Ukrainian legal jurisdiction. This work of preserving memory, carried out behind the scenes and without sufficient resources, is one of the most important forms of resistance to the occupation.

Families in Ukraine have had no news of their loved ones detained in Crimea for weeks. This uncertainty, deliberately perpetuated by the occupying power, is a form of psychological violence that statistics fail to capture. Behind every name on a list of detainees, there is a family waiting.

Prisoner Exchanges as a Complex Diplomatic Tool

Prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and Russia have been one of the few channels of direct contact between the two warring parties since 2022. These exchanges, often facilitated by intermediaries such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, or Turkey, have enabled the return of several thousand Ukrainian military personnel and civilians. But political prisoners held in Crimea since 2014—many of whom are Crimean Tatars—fall into a different category.

Russia treats them as common criminals or terrorists under its legal framework—designations it refuses to negotiate within the context of traditional prisoner-of-war exchanges. This creates a deliberate legal asymmetry: prisoners of war can be exchanged under the Geneva Conventions, but political prisoners convicted under Russian law find themselves in a legal vacuum where Russia can refuse any negotiation by invoking its judicial sovereignty.

What the Logistical Stalemate Reveals About the State of Russia

The Russian authorities’ inability to transfer political prisoners from Crimea to prisons on the mainland—revealed by sources close to the documented cases—says something important about the state of Russia in 2026. A prison system that can no longer manage its own inmates, even in a territory it has controlled for twelve years, is a system under severe structural strain.

This pressure is the combined result of economic sanctions, massive human losses in the conflict in Ukraine, and the gradual deterioration of Russia’s administrative infrastructure. This is not a one-off failure—it is a symptom of a system crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions. And for political prisoners in Crimea, this systemic deterioration translates into further uncertainty about their daily lives.

A Russian prison system that can no longer manage its own inmates. This offers a glimpse into the true state of Russia in 2026: not the invincible power portrayed by Putin’s propaganda, but an administrative machine that creaks and grinds to a halt. The political prisoners in Crimea are paying the price.

Twelve Years of Occupation, a Worsening Crisis

Since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the establishment of a Russian prison system on the territory, the situation of political prisoners has steadily deteriorated. Each year brings new arrests, new trials conducted under Russian law imposed on a population that has never accepted it, and new convictions that pile up in the records of human rights organizations. In 2026, the number of confirmed political prisoners in Crimea far exceeds the figure from 2022.

This ongoing deterioration is the result of a deliberate policy of systematic repression of any opposition to the occupation. The Crimean Tatars, who are the most targeted group, have seen their organizations banned, their places of worship closed, and their media censored. Ukrainian human rights defenders who remain in Crimea and document the violations risk arrest with every operation. The space for peaceful civil resistance has shrunk to the point of being virtually nonexistent.

International Pressure: Real but Insufficient

There are numerous mechanisms for exerting international pressure on Russia regarding its political prisoners in Crimea, but their effectiveness is limited. UN General Assembly resolutions, reports from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and bilateral diplomatic efforts by allied governments—none of these have led to significant releases. Russia systematically treats this pressure as interference in its internal affairs and does not alter its policy.

This does not mean, however, that such pressure is useless. It keeps the issue on the international diplomatic agenda, prevents it from being forgotten, documents the facts for future proceedings, and creates symbolic pressure on Russian officials who may one day be held accountable before international courts. In the case of Crimea’s political prisoners, the international community’s patience and perseverance are themselves a form of resistance.

Resolutions, reports, diplomatic efforts. And the prisoners in Crimea remain in their cells. It’s frustrating. But that’s no reason to stop documenting, speaking out, and keeping up the pressure. Justice will be served. The question is when, not if.

What These Idle Prison Vans Tell Us About the War

Prison vans that can no longer run due to a lack of fuel. Political prisoners stranded indefinitely. Trams at a standstill. This picture of a paralyzed peninsula is a striking metaphor for the overall state of Russia’s imperial project in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin had promised to restore Russia’s greatness. Instead, he has created an occupation administration incapable of managing its own detainees.

Crimea in 2026 is no longer the symbol of Russian strength it was supposed to be in 2014. It is a territory suffocated by Ukrainian strikes, managed in chaos by overwhelmed occupation authorities, where the rights of residents—particularly Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians—are violated on a daily basis. And at the Simferopol detention center, men and women wait, not knowing when—or if—they will be released.

The Imperative of Justice

This account calls for a response from the international community. Not just another statement, not yet another resolution that Russia will disregard—but concrete pressure, monitoring mechanisms, and demands for their release embedded in ongoing diplomatic processes. These prisoners have names. They have families. They have stories that the occupation has sought to erase. Naming them, counting them, demanding their release—that is the very least the free world owes them.

Crimea will be Ukrainian. And when that day comes, these archives documenting the crimes of the occupation will form the foundation of justice that knows no statute of limitations.

Crimea’s political prisoners are the forgotten ones of this war—caught between two systems, two jurisdictions, two ways of thinking. Their release depends on a Ukrainian victory more than on any negotiations. That is why supporting Ukraine also means supporting these men and women who wait in silence.

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist