Breaking: RSF discovers Ukrainian creator of Telegram news channel forced into “slavery” by Russian occupiers
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) was investigating into the reported disappearances of several Ukrainian journalists in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol when it learned of Yevhenii Ilchenko. Arrested for creating a Telegram channel that reported on the Russian occupation of his city, Ilchenko has endured torture and forced labour, including digging trenches for his captors.
Yevhenii Ilchenko was a lawyer in Melitopol, a city in southeastern Ukraine, until Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The city was conquered soon after the invasion and its occupation has been long and harsh, profoundly changing the lives of its inhabitants. On May 3, 2022, without informing his family, Yevhenii launched a Telegram channel called @Mitopol. He stated his intentions clearly with the very first message, which announced: "Analysis, events and facts." llchenko took a great personal risk to keep the public informed despite his lack of previous journalistic experience, demonstrating a real commitment to reporting on the day-to-day life of his city and its inhabitants.
llchenko’s reports were almost exclusively devoted to local news, as he covered supply problems in supermarkets, the presence of occupiers in the streets of Melitopol, and the corruption of certain local authorities in issuing traffic permits. @Mitopol's last report was posted on 10 July 2022. Its images, which llchenko filmed the day before with his cell phone, show the long queues to obtain administrative documents that have become commonplace since the invasion. "The reality of occupation in the absence of Ukrainian authorities," read Ilchenko’s caption, published at 8:02 AM.
Two hours later, four Russian soldiers in uniform came to Ilchenko's home. His apartment was turned upside down, and jewellery and documents were stolen. Ilchenko, who had been out for a walk, was arrested in his garden on his return on accusations of "terrorism." Messages that Ilchenko managed to send to one of his relatives, which RSF has seen, described how he was first detained for several weeks in Melitopol with some 15 other Ukrainians. According to the messages, acts of torture were commonplace. Prisoners were regularly electrocuted, particularly on their genitals. Sometimes, the prisoners were driven into a forest, naked, at night, for a mock execution before being brought back, terrorised, to their jail. "I didn't crack, but not everyone is as strong," he wrote to his contact. The worst, however, was yet to come.
Starting in September 2022, after the Russians had suffered months of military setbacks, Yevhenii Ilchenko was subjected to forced labour. Photos sent by Ilchenko during his captivity, seen by RSF, show that he was forced to help build trenches for the Russian forces and clean their soldiers' weapons for several months. At the time, Ilchenko was held a few dozen kilometres from Melitopol, which was on the front line, near the Ukrainian village Verbove in the Zaporizhzhya region. Ilchenko also managed to send a photo of a fellow Ukrainian, shovel in hand, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison a few months after the photo was taken.
“Captured, tortured and then enslaved… This is the first time, in nearly forty years of defending journalism, that RSF has documented a journalist, blogger or whistleblower subject to total slavery and forced to participate in a war effort against their own country. Because this man chose to keep the public informed, he has not only been held captive for two years but forced into hard labour. We have gone from arbitrariness to barbarism. Yevhenii Ilchenko must immediately be released.
The “slaves” exposed to strikes from their own country
Yevhenii Ilchenko returned to prison after several months of digging defensive lines for his captors. According to one of RSF's sources, he may now be held in Taganrog, a port city in the far south-west of Russia, not far from the Ukrainian border, in conditions that remain harsh. An ex-prisoner in Taganrog told RSF that walks are only allowed once every two months, and that the lights are always on in order to torture the prisoners.
The local authorities in Melitopol — who relocated to other areas of Zaporizhzhya in March 2022 — have identified at least 17 Ukrainians who have been subjected to forced labour, as well as over 100 civilians who are still being held by the occupying forces. In some cases, Russian forces use Ukrainian civilians for mine clearance, exposing them to both forced labour and potential death by either a mine or their own country's drone strikes. RSF learned of this Russian tactic against Ukrainians from a civilian arrested near Melitopol who suffered the same forced labour as Yevhenii Ilchenko.
Since the large-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, no fewer than 13 Ukrainian journalists have been arbitrarily arrested by Russian forces and are currently detained in either the occupied territories of Ukraine or in the Russian Federation. RSF has been investigating into the disappearance of one such reporter, Dmytro Khyliuk, a journalist for the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, who was arrested in March 2022. According to the latest information obtained by our organisation in July 2024, this journalist is still being held in Pakino, a settlement in the Vladimir region of Russia.
Ukraine and Russia are ranked 61st and 162nd respectively out of 180 countries in RSF's 2024 World Press Freedom Index.
