RSF: Dmytro Khyliuk has lost a lot of weight in captivity

Dmytro Khyliuk, photo by the Media Initiative for Human rights

UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khilyuk, who has been unlawfully detained by Russia, has lost a lot of weight and now weighs "no more than 45 kilos," says former Ukrainian POW Ihor, who had spent a year sharing a cell with Dmytro in a prison in Russia's Vladimir region.

Ihor spoke about his time in captivity with the international organization "Reporters Without Borders".

"When I came back to Ukraine, I saw his photo and I can tell you he doesn't look like that at all," says Ihor, who was released in May 2024.

He considers Dmytro Khyliuk his friend after surviving "an excruciating year" in their shared cell number 8 of the IK-7 penal colony in Pakino (Vladimir region). The journalist is still imprisoned there.

Ihor spoke about the abuse at the hands of Russians. He says there are some fifteen Ukrainians, both civilians and military personnel, in this cell. Ihor described how he and his companions were forced to walk naked in the prison yard in the middle of winter at minus 10 degrees Celsius. During inspections, it was not uncommon for the prison guards or the security services (FSB) to let their dogs loose on the prisoners. The Ukranians were regularly forced to sing the Russian anthem, and were often deprived of food.

Head of RSF's Investigative Desk, Arnaud Froger, remarks that Russia not only continues to lie about Dmytro's fate, but also treats him in a humiliating and inhumane manner.

"We were asking Russia for proof of life, and we have obtained — by our own means — new proof of the cruelties inflicted on journalist Dmytro Khyliuk and his fellow prisoners. Not only does Russia continue to lie about his fate, it encourages the degrading, inhuman treatment of prisoners. Hostages held by criminal or terrorist groups in other parts of the world are treated with greater respect and dignity. We call on the Russian authorities to release Khyliuk, and on the Ukrainian authorities to double their efforts to get him out of this hell," he says.

The detention of UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk

On July 13, RSF reported that Dmytro Khyliuk, UNIAN journalist abducted by Russian soldiers in March 2022, is possibly in one of the prisons in the Vladimir region of Russia.

UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk has been in Russian captivity since March 2022 as a civilian hostage. Such prisoners should be released separately from POW swaps, but the Russians are not doing this.

In May 2023, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said that he was personally monitoring the issue UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk's release from Russian captivity.

The Prosecutor General's Office has opened a case regarding the abduction of civilians on the territory of the Dymer hromada. The investigation considers journalist Dmytro Khylyuk and his father victims. The case was opened under Part 1 of Art. 438 of the Criminal Code (violation of the laws and customs of war).

Russian soldiers kidnapped Dmytro Khyliuk on February 26, 2022, in the garden of his own house in Kozarovychi. He was first kept in the occupied Dymer, and then taken to a prison in Russia.

In December 2023, Dmytro Hylyuk was awarded by the Platform of European Memory and Conscience.

The Russian Ministry of Defense does not explicitly say that the UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk is being kept in detention as a prisoner of war, but cites the Third Geneva Convention, which specifically concerns POW treatment, in response to his father's request.

On July 9, 2024 the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said that Ukraine had unofficial data on the whereabouts of UNIAN correspondent Dmytro Khyliuk, who was kidnapped by the Russian troops.