\n\n“\u201cWoman, calm down,\u201d soldiers told Maruniak\u2019s wife, according to Natali. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s the last time you see your husband.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She saw her husband one more time, on March 24. He returned again with soldiers, though this time, they covered their faces. \u201cFeed him, change his socks, and give him his medicine,\u201d they ordered Maruniak\u2019s wife. As she did, she noticed his legs were bruised blue. There was another bruise on his right temple, another on his arm. Maruniak said nothing, only that it was cold where he was being held.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was the last Maruniak\u2019s family saw or heard anything about him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maruniak is among dozens of local officials<\/a> or community leaders who have been abducted or arbitrarily arrested by Russian forces as they seized territory in Ukraine, especially in the east and the south. These disappearances are both an attempt to coerce cooperation and atargeted effort to silence and intimidate Ukrainians who may oppose or organize against a Russian occupation.” …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has documented about 109 cases of suspected detention or enforced disappearances among civilians since February 24, including 48 local officials. The UN and other human rights groups have confirmed disappearances among other members of civil society: volunteers, activists, journalists<\/a>, religious leaders, protesters, and former military veterans. (Vox reached out to the Russian Embassy for comment, but did not receive a response.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anastasiia Moskvychova, who has been tracking disappearances for ZMINA, says they have confirmed more than 100 arbitrary detentions since February 24; about 50 people are still missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Kyiv-based activist and head of the Center for Civil Liberties, said these numbers are only the \u201ctop of the iceberg.\u201d Her group is tracking dozens more suspected cases of enforced disappearances, but they are still trying to corroborate evidence, a task that\u2019s all the more difficult in Russian-occupied areas. Other times, family and friends of the suspected victims fear making that information public.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n ” All of this foreshadows how Russia might try to consolidate control in Ukrainian areas it captures by force.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Extrajudicial arrests happen within Russia, but they are documented more frequently in Russia\u2019s other territories, including Dagestan<\/a> and Chechnya<\/a>, where enforced disappearances became what Human Rights Watch described as an \u201cenduring feature\u201d<\/a> of the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Crimea, ethnic Tatars, who tended to oppose Russia\u2019s annexation in 2014, were targeted<\/a>, including one local activist and leader who was allegedly kidnapped by men in Russian traffic police uniforms<\/a> in 2016. In the Donbas, militias kidnapped, tortured, and killed a local city council member<\/a> who tried to take down a flag of the so-called Donetsk People\u2019s Republic. \u201cThey hunted after the activists, after the persons who supported the Ukrainian army, Ukrainian volunteers,\u201d said Oleksandr Pavlichenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNow we see the same scheme,\u201d Pavlichenko added, \u201cand it\u2019s only the beginning of this scheme.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Human rights watchers and experts say it is often difficult to say who is carrying out disappearances, or subsequent mistreatment \u2014 including in Ukraine right now. \u201cThe state actors are not interested in accountability for those kinds of abuses, so it creates this environment of impunity,\u201d said Saskia Brechenmacher, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has researched Russian civil society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That can make it hard to know exactly how organized these actions are, or whether they are directed top-down from Moscow, the work of local units or security services, or militias affiliated with Moscow.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Ahead of the invasion, the United States told the United Nations it had credible information that Moscow was compiling lists<\/a> of Ukrainians to be \u201ckilled or sent to camps.\u201d Advocates do not have confirmation of such lists, or who may have compiled them if they do exist, but emphasized that this campaign of disappearances is not random.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not happening as some chaotic or spontaneous thing,\u201d Andreyuk said. \u201cThis is very targeted detentions \u2014 and it\u2019s a very targeted policy to get more control over society.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Added together, these disappearances help create a \u201cStalin-like\u201d police state, a rule through terror and mistrust, and where nobody knows what \u2014 or who \u2014 might make them a target of disappearance. \u201cIf you just keep silent, it is also suspicious,\u201d Pavlichenko said.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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