for 15 minutes, we will have political experts oleksiy holobutskyi, oleksayan and viktor boberenko. stay on our channel, do not switch, it will be interesting. how russia abducts ukrainians from the occupied territories, how many such civilian prisoners it receives and how to return them all. we are talking about this on bbc news ukraine live from london. i am yevgenia shedlovska. not a word is said, while relatives are looking for their loved ones in russian captivity, bbc journalists found confirmation that russia receives thousands of ukrainian civilians without charge or trial, lawyers, law enforcers cannot get to them. russia... illegally receives

ukrainian civilians in pre-trial detention centers and colonies in various regions of the country and also in the occupied ukrainian territories. bbc journalists and human rights activists counted almost four dozen places of detention, although this list is not exhaustive. how many ukrainian civilians can be in russian captivity. first, different sources name different amounts, and secondly, the numbers differ tens of times. let's start with the most conservative estimates. the red cross announced this in november number: almost 800, but the organization does not always get access to places of detention where russia can receive ukrainians. ukrainian human rights activists believe that there may be several thousand hostages in the annexed crimea and other occupied territories. and ombudsman dmytro lubinets announces an even higher number: 25,000 ukrainian civilians are missing, and according to the official, a significant part of them could have been kidnapped by the russian occupation forces. russia does not disclose information about ukrainian civilian prisoners. and here is one from many stories. during the occupation of chernihiv. volodymyr buzynov saw how the russians

detained his brother nikita, interrogated him, simulated an execution, then received him in the basement, and when the village was liberated, nikita was not found. he will check that he did not die, after the russians left, chernihiv, kyiv region, there were extensive search operations here, well, as for the bodies, they were not found, they handed over dna, that is, thank god, nothing was found, logically, that. .. not here, or not found, it’s like that, well, we believe that it is there, because letters, letters reached, here we are at the beginning of the war there, we sent letters in the spring through another letter, they reached the belgohorod colony number three, that's where they are, well, they have an automatic system there. there is a status of the letter and it was written in

the status that it was delivered, and we started to check, that is, we asked the lawyer that he went there, well, to no avail, of course they told him that there is no one there, first of all we need the attention of our authorities, uh, let's say, i can give an example, again, there was a press conference of zelenskyy recently, uh... he summarized the results of the year, someone there asked him a question about civilians, well , you can just say, he did not answer the question directly, he said that we return prisoners of war there, we return children there and so on, not a word was said about civilians, in the fall the russian agency responsible for prisons, how ukrainian civilians such as volodymyr's brother end up in russian captivity, what charges are brought against them, bbc correspondent zhanna bezpyachuk investigated. first of all, it is a suspicion of

a pro-ukrainian position and of helping the armed forces forces of ukraine, but in practice a person can be detained simply for messages deleted on his phone, in which they consider the same pro-ukrainian position, to some of the citizens of ukraine who tried to leave the combat zone, during filtering, as well as... threw some evidence, the existence of evidence of their support for the armed forces of ukraine. a person can be detained even simply for the fact that he lives in a building next to the location of the russian military, and after another shelling or an escalation of the situation, arrests and detentions are carried out, in fact this abduction of people who live near this place, they are accused of adjusting the fire. quite often there are accusations that people... allegedly are agents of the sbu. under what conditions

are prisoners received, what is known about it. did my colleague and wife communicate with those who returned from captivity with their relatives? i had to hear... once such wording that ukrainian prisoners are treated as if they are not human beings. the second point is that most of those who pass through cisos, colonies, or so-called basements, are it is called, in the occupied territories, they are subjected to torture, torture, people tell terrible things, not all of them, maybe even. preach, because, well, morally, ethically , people go through a very cruel treatment, and it is aimed at getting a person to confess to certain crimes, in the interpretation of russia, russian

legislation, in particular, that people have committed certain actions against of the russian military, and accordingly, and these... tortures, these tortures, they are also aimed at breaking the will of a person as much as possible. the second point is that what everyone is talking about is extremely poor nutrition, people lose 10-20, 30 kg in a few months of being in such a situation, often the absence or lack of elementary hygiene products, this is also a kind of indirect and... such torture in relation to a person who degrades his dignity, and can limit the amount of drinking water, and at the same time there is no connection with his relatives, in fact , a person simply finds himself in such total

solitude, and often the only hope to find out where he is is to collect evidence everyone prisoners of war and civilian ukrainians who were released, about what surnames, whose surnames they heard on roll calls, during set-ups, with whom they sat in the cells, and this is how, fortunately, it is sometimes possible to find people when there is no other connection with them, but if a person has been charged, then there is a chance to find a russian lawyer for him through human rights defenders, and that lawyer can hypothetically visit the person and find him in this prison system. and civilians are kept in captivity practically indefinitely, because for russia it is legal they do not exist on the plane. a huge problem in this story is that ukrainians are detained very often for resisting special military operations of the russian federation on the occupied

ukrainian territories, but there is no such article in russian criminal law. accordingly, in fact, for the russian law enforcement and penitentiary system, these people... they exist, if there is no gender, if there are no official charges brought against a person, then a person is formally imprisoned without any grounds, but the russian law enforcement, punitive system, of course not admits that if there is no indictment, then there is no access, lawyers even have a chance to achieve this to... access, we recorded the stories of the testimony of lawyers who tried to get to ukrainian citizens in russian colonies, prisons, they are not allowed in, they often deny the presence of a person in that or another prison or colony, although there is

unofficial evidence that a person can be there, and of course, as a consequence of all this, the right is also a fair trial, and... this person cannot exercise, the system does not provide him with this right, therefore for of the russian system these it's as if people don't exist, but there are hundreds, thousands of ukrainians who find themselves in this unknown, in very difficult conditions, where it's difficult to survive physically, not to mention the psychological pressure they experience. russia considers ukrainian civilians prisoners of war. ukraine does not recognize that civilians in russian custody have the same status as prisoners of war. why is this status important? how does this affect the chances of these people being released? we asked tetyana katrychenko, an expert of the media initiative for human rights. when we

we are talking about military personnel, and there is a clearly prescribed mechanism in the geneva conventions, when two sides have the right to capture military personnel of others. parties to keep them until the end of even the conflict, return the sick and injured outside the exchanges, all can be returned at the end of the lash. that is, this mykhay is known, these servicemen should be obtained in decent conditions, no worse than for their regular army, when we talk about civilians, then we cannot say that the exchange itself is the mechanism that can to return civilians, although it is clear that ukraine, russia, and other countries also use this very mechanism of exchange, because for example, in... the exchange that took place recently, there were also names on the list that were exchanged, there were several

civilians. international humanitarian law, which regulates the customs of war, does not provide for the taking of civilian hostages. why does russia deprive ukrainian civilians of their freedom and hide information about them? the russian federation detained civilian citizens, apparently, fearing what or not fearing, or... to detain civilians , thinking that an occupation is possible, and in general , this military operation of theirs will not last long, it will not capture the entire territory of the russians of ukraine, and accordingly it will be necessary to carry out certain exchanges, which it is used to, so it is possible thought that the more she captures not only military personnel, but also civilians, the more she will form this exchange fund. the russian federation has obviously not confirmed it now. keeping most civilians because she

realized at some point that she had caught a big one the number of civilians and does not know what to do with them, it equates them to military personnel, since it keeps them in the same conditions in which it receives ukrainian prisoners of war, in those colonies, in those sizo. and it is obvious that she does not want to admit that she will receive so many citizens, and in such terrible conditions without... justifiably, yes, in terrible conditions, and that she will not be able to quickly return them in the state in which they are, so the russian it is now profitable for the federation to keep silent about the fact that they receive thousands of ukrainian citizens on their territory. thousands civilian ukrainians in russian colonies are received without charges, without access to lawyers, without contact with their relatives, what are the chances of their liberation and how can ukraine achieve this? it is obvious that russia and ukraine cannot agree on the return

of civilian citizens. it is obvious that ukraine, first of all, should understand for itself how many citizens of ukraine the russian federation will receive. and when she will understand how many citizens and where exactly they are received, how they are moved, under what conditions they are received, then ukraine should look for additional... mechanisms, additional arguments for that, additional negotiators who could intervene in this situation, regarding the return of citizens, we know that ukraine is currently using, for example, qatar or with the mediation of qatar , children are returned, yes on the territory controlled by ukraine, maybe and not possible, there should definitely be such negotiators. for the return of civilians, the question of whether it will be one country, or one person, or a group

of countries, perhaps on the basis of, for example, the un, a special working group could be created a group that would be created from several representatives of several countries that would formally, informally, openly or privately work on the issue. the return of civilians, but there is no exact data on how many civilians russia will receive, several thousand, several tens of thousands, human rights activists call different figures, and there are no legal mechanisms to return them when russia considers them prisoners of war. you can also read about civilian hostages on our website bbc.ui, the article is written by zhanna bespyatchuk. how russia steals ukrainians from the occupied territories and where are they? such a title disappears, on this i say goodbye to you, see you tomorrow,

good evening, we are from ukraine, congratulations, friends, live on the tv channel, the verdict program, my name is. serhii rudenko, we continue our broadcast and our program. in this part of the program, see eternal war. medvedev threatens not to let go, even if ukraine joins nato. what this means for global security. provocations against investigative journalists became more frequent. who is doing the government a disservice with zmi? russian narratives in the media. how does an aggressor affect the information space of ukraine and

the world. friends, let me remind you that we are working live. espresso channel and on our youtube and facebook platforms, for those who are currently watching us on those platforms, please like this video to trend on those platforms and subscribe to our youtube pages and facebook. also, take our survey, today we're running a survey, a big two-hour survey of ours broadcast, we ask you this, do you trust journalistic investigations, yes, no, please. and vote on youtube with the yes or no button, you can write your comment under this broadcast and share your thoughts, if you watch us on tv, please pick up your phone and vote, if you trust journalistic investigations, it means quality journalistic investigations, not leaks and commissioned investigations, then

0.800 211 381, no 080021382. calls to these numbers are free, at the end of the program we will sum up the results of this vote. i would like to introduce the guests of today's studio. so, these are political experts, oleg sahakyan, oleksiy holobutsky, and viktor boberenko. gentlemen, i welcome you, thank you for being with us today. good health. today we will have such a big, big conversation about journalists, about accusations, about surveillance, about what happens to journalists, maybe. i'm going to tell you something more than you know, although you also know what is happening in the journalistic world right now, but first of all, let's be very brief, literally in the blitz format, do you trust investigative journalism, you all have a relationship with political technology and will probably be skeptical about

investigative journalism, because part of investigative journalism is magazines. investigations, and there are some texts that are pseudo-investigations, and you must have definitely come across this. mr. viktor, it will start with you. the russians, excuse me for quoting a russian proverb, have a lot of them, but it is very appropriate here, yes, the volkadav is right, but the cannibal is not, likewise, and i will say that there are journalistic investigation, for example , nikolov, who is now being attacked by... , and there is dubinsky, dubinsky was once thought to be a journalist, or i

won't name the channels, which are there in the common people of g +g. there is no journalism there. thank you, mr. victor. mr. oleg. well, first of all, the vast majority of what passes for investigation isn't , is fluff, really shoddy. ah media activity that cannot be called investigations . in the midst of what is an investigation, again, trust but verify. because even people with famous surnames can have situations when they are handed over to the barbell. even among media that are authoritative, they can often be used in the dark, and the key thing here is that journalism is about the fourth estate, and that also implies responsibility, and in particular for accusations and in particular for investigations, there is also the responsibility of the author for what the data is there really verified, the sources there are reliable, these

accusations are not baseless, because it is always easier to blame. than to be the one who makes excuses, and if journalists really recognize and know this responsibility , then they prepare high-quality investigations, and such investigations then form the basis of the most significant political movements and events, therefore , without journalistic investigations , no democracy can exist, this is one of the key and basic requirements for democracy, after all, if there is no democracy, then there is no journalism, it exists only democracy, because of this, journalists are... serbs of democracy, that is why they are and are given such power in the eyes of society, and that is why we talk about the category of trust in relation to them. thank you, mr. oleksiy, do you trust journalistic investigations? well, here the question is not trust or confidence, so to speak, in journalistic investigations, in principle, this is a question of some values,

so to speak, ah, i all these scandals, which, well, i don't even want to discuss them, yes there coincidentally, they don't understand at all why i'm here , god forbid, i also had an office. in which people were engaged in, apparently, not only by sniffing and something, but much worse , but i did not bear any responsibility, but this is absolutely normal, we, we are not elected by the people, just like journalists, we do not occupy some positions, we are free people in a free country, in principle , yes, if this is a crime, please announce a criminal case, if people are resting, how they want to rest, let them rest, it’s about pronikolav , the situation is generally bad there, absolutely everything is clear, in general i don't even want to discuss it, it's terrible the situation, it reminds me of the situation, i remember with portnikov once, well, people from

old age probably remember this situation like this, but at the moment for me it is a sign that the government is in a huge crisis, just a huge crisis. and the measures to somehow close this crisis in them, unfortunately, are the same as they were 10, 15, and 20 years ago, so the problem is not in trust, of course, which is known to all of us, serozha, i will not name the last name, yes, made my career on journalistic research, just getting flash drive with compromising material from... one structure about just that and that's it, it's certainly not a journalistic investigation, but still it's also a manifestation of freedom of speech, about manifestations of the prism of thoughts, it

should be, hey, hey, even if it's just a fight of compromising materials , but it should still exist, so of course that without, the question is again not about trust, that it should exist, because if it doesn't, other institutional possibilities, to cover... certain things, in the first place corruption, arbitrariness of the authorities, we simply don't have it, just don't have it and that's it, you can't do anything here. well, do you want, gentlemen, this, that, or not, but let's still talk about what happened with bigus from the company, we are not talking about any substances that the employees of the company used there, we are talking about illegal listening and illegal video recording, so what's more, the security service of ukraine is already talking about the fact that... has declared, declares that it is investigating the circumstances of illegal video recording and wiretapping of representatives of the bigus-info project, criminal

proceedings have been opened according to article 359 of the criminal code of ukraine, illegal acquisitions of sales or the use of special technical means of obtaining information, well, they promise the transparent and unhindered work of independent and professional media this incriminating information about the operators who ordered some narcotics there, and he also commented on this story later, he said that what struck him the most was that for a whole year , it turns out, all the people who worked in his... project in projects journalistic investigations and fragments of intercepted conversations edited from several episodes with months between them. let's listen to what denys bigus said. it does not look like

a spontaneous act of revenge for some specific material. this is systematic, long-term monitoring and persecution, to discredit the team's work, the work it has been doing throughout. years, years, and i don't know how this story can discredit our content, well, but it is, well, obviously the logic is quite simple, what to expect from them, look, drug addicts, what they can tell there, the same exactly, in principle, what was once accused of president zelensky, when he ran for the post of head of state in the 19th year, he went there, gave blood, proved that he... does not use narcotics, but the irony of the situation is in the fact that it is during zelenskyi's presidency that

the story about wiretapping unfolds. about video shooting with the participation of journalists, and this also in a certain way characterizes both the government and the state, because it is not only about the government and the attitude of the government or, let's say, people close to authorities, because journalists, investigators have many people who can take revenge on them or eavesdrop, but not so many people who can arrange this service and video recording professionally. mr. viktor, how do you perceive this story in the context of what is happening in the state, how does it affect general perception, and the fact that yuriy nikolov and bigusa's company immediately came under attack this week. first of all, sergey, you and i know everything about zelenskyi, and we know that he did not donate blood, poroshenko donated blood,

and zelenskyi... just a bit ashamed to donate blood, although the first one offered to donate blood and see who is sniffing what and who is doing what, but i will say the following: all journalists, honest and truthful journalists are under threat, and you have already said it, i just have to confirm your thesis that someone will behave, someone will believe there and then someone will say, well, they are all the same , who do you believe, my god, this is what kind of investigative journalists they are there like pricking, sniffing something else there, something else, there are lgbt followers there or something else, well, in general, quiet horror, that's another thing, that 's another thing, that's what i would like to emphasize, that you imagine that someone is wasting people's time, not

only those. night means as a resource yes , and also some, well, roughly speaking, there are technologies of the 21st century, there are people, talent and time, yes, that is, someone’s human talent and time is spent on what, no, on a war with russia, not against , well, not countering propaganda, for it to be filmed, there it is... nikolova, there, bigusa, butusov there or someone else, still, still, so, and actually tomorrow they might come after you, but we are not sure, or serhii rudenko is not being followed now, and they are not following vasyl in the winter, and they are not following anyone else, whether on the direct line, or on the fifth, who knows, hz, and we cannot pray, because someone on it spends

some. resource, and whether it is effective at a time when we need a resource at the front, we need it even in the rear, even on your tv channel, a resource is needed, a human resource, but people, talent and time are needed to make it all work, but it is replaced by someone and someone, well who and someone, let's say, not very much deals with what is needed, what should be paid attention to, and if the government is involved, then also, by the way, we recently asked how many people work in the president's office, and it turns out that 372 people work in the president's office, and are they engaged in this or no , thank you, sir, mr. victor, i don't know what they want to know, well, i hypothetically imagine that they

are listening to something there, or there, well, i don't know, filming, i don't use drugs, no, no i drink alcohol, well, historically, i don't smoke, well, maybe they hear some conversations, what i'm doing on the phone or there via messenger, i just can't, but sometimes when you mention the office of the president, you must be confused, well, i don't know what can be done, what can they find out, except that i'm already... i write and say publicly, that is, but to be honest, i am saddened by these stories, why, because you mentioned the employees of our tv channel, when we started talking from lviv, portnikov moved to lviv, and since he was listened to, as he admitted, the whole time, and recorded various videos, then threw them away during the revolution dignity from his personal private life.