Ukraine Records 695 Torture Methods, 406 POW Deaths

Ukraine on Thursday placed the systematic torture of its prisoners of war at the centre of its diplomatic case against Russia. At the launch of the "Made in Russia. Delivered to Captivity" project in Kyiv, Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets formally recorded 695 distinct torture methods — strangulation, beating, electric shocks, dog attacks, 18-hour forced standing, starvation, and a practice the project documents as the "hairdresser," in which skin is cut from the scalp during shaving — and confirmed 406 deaths in custody of Ukrainian POWs and civilian hostages whose captured status had been verified by the ICRC or other sources. Cause of death is typically broken ribs and internal-organ damage, compounded by the denial of medical assistance. Ukrainian authorities have logged 860 cases of improper detention conditions, identified 29 detention sites in coordination with international partners (18 inside Russia and 11 in occupied territory), and verified 186 holding locations across Russia, the occupied territories and Siberia through their own intelligence agencies. Lubinets reserved particular anger for the International Committee of the Red Cross, which declined a separate invitation to attend: invoking the 2022 Olenivka prison explosion that killed 53 ICRC-verified POWs and injured more than 130, he said "there is no international human rights protection system" functioning against Russia. He also documented 2,112 Russian-court convictions of Ukrainians at sentences of 20 to 25 years or life — which he called a separate, ongoing crime.

The single best-documented case of the systematic abuse the project describes landed in parallel. Azov Brigade deputy commander Sviatoslav Palamar confirmed the death by torture of Azov chief medical officer Oleksandr Krokhmaliuk, captured from Azovstal, who survived the Olenivka camp and the Taganrog torture facility before dying in Russian custody. His body was returned to Ukraine in September 2025; forensic examination in Lviv recorded fractured ribs and blunt-force chest trauma as the cause of death — the exact injury pattern Lubinets identified as the project's most common in its broader dataset.

Even with the torture portfolio dominating the day, the war's two-sided humanitarian-logistical machinery kept moving. Lubinets, in a second announcement, said Ukraine and Russia had agreed technical steps to evacuate approximately 6,000 civilians — including about 200 children — from the Oleshky area of Kherson region toward Ukrainian-controlled territory, after May 15 negotiations. He described conditions there as a humanitarian catastrophe of daily combat, drone strikes and food and water shortages. The UN Refugee Agency separately reported that a May 20 Russian missile strike on its warehouse in Dnipro had destroyed about 900 pallets of supplies worth more than $1 million and killed at least two people; UNHCR Ukraine representative Bernadette Castel-Hollingsworth said it was the first time a UNHCR facility had been targeted since the full-scale invasion began. The IAEA, in turn, reported that the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant had been running on its single 330-kV Ferosplavna-1 backup line since 24 March, after the main 750-kV Dniprovska line was disconnected; a communications failure at a radiation-monitoring station was also recorded during the period.

Diplomacy and military operations rounded out the day. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine insists on the formal opening of all six EU negotiation clusters in June, citing the removal of the political obstacle previously linked to Hungary's government after recent elections; he confirmed preparations for a meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar. Bloomberg, in a separate report cited by Euromaidan Press, said Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to conclude the war by the end of 2026 on victorious terms including full control of Donbas and a broader security understanding with Europe acknowledging Russia's territorial gains.

On the front itself, Ukraine's General Staff logged 253 combat clashes over the May 21-22 reporting window — a significant uptick — with the heaviest fighting in the Pokrovsk sector, where Ukrainian forces repelled 52 Russian assaults. Russian forces conducted one missile strike, 95 air strikes, and dropped 288 guided aerial bombs across the front. Ukraine's long-range strike campaign continued: Kyiv Post and Ukrinform reported strikes on an Osa surface-to-air system in Donetsk city, command posts in Novopetrivka and Tyotkino, the Yaroslavl oil refinery (the second time in a week), and a dormitory in Russian-occupied Starobilsk that killed four; Russia labelled the Starobilsk strike a "monstrous crime." Euromaidan Press separately compiled that Ukraine has now struck 24 of Russia's 33 largest refineries since 2022. Analysts cited by Ukrainian outlets described the previous day's nearly-600-drone strike across 14 Russian regions, including Moscow, as a demonstration of overwhelming capability rather than a strategic shift in Kyiv's operational logic.