Kyle

For four years, two Ukrainian girls have been waiting to hug their mother. Her name is Yanina Akulova. And russia has kept her from her children since October 11, 2022. In these photos, they are still together. Smiling, making plans, believing in the future. They had no idea how much time would be stolen from them. Yanina was known in Melitopol as a hardworking, compassionate woman who loved Ukraine and helped those in need. On October 11, 2022, russians detained her at a checkpoint as she returned to Melitopol after arranging for her family to leave the city. She was held for over a month in an underground facility known as “the pit,” where she was tortured and forced to confess to a fabricated sabotage plot. “They beat me so badly that I no longer cared... I signed whatever they put in front of me,” she reportedly told her family. Yanina was later transferred to Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo detention center. She is now held in a penal colony in Russia’s Vladimir region. She has lost 15 kilograms in captivity. Her asthma has worsened, and her health is deteriorating. A russian sham court sentenced her to nine years in prison. Her older daughter, Vika, is 16. She knows what happened to her mother and cries every night. Eight-year-old Zlata still hopes her mother will return soon. She cannot fully understand why the person she loves most is still not home. Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War and Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets have included Yanina on exchange lists. Yet Russia continues to obstruct the return of civilian hostages. Yanina is one of many Ukrainian civilians illegally imprisoned by russia. They are tortured, separated from their families, and punished for their connection to Ukraine. We must not let the world forget her. Vika and Zlata are growing up without their mother. Every day in captivity is time they can never get back. Her daughters are waiting. Her family is waiting. Ukraine is waiting. No sham sentence can justify stealing a mother's life from her children. Yanina Akulova must come home. #FreeUkrainianPOWs

People in occupied Oleshky are pleading for help. A city where a humanitarian disaster has been unfolding for more than six months. What this local resident describes is horrifying. More from Oleshky below. 👇

“A young man was raped in front of others and filmed for an entire week.” This is not a scene from a horror movie. This is what Natalia Havrylenko witnessed in russian captivity after being taken from Kherson on July 7, 2022. She says there wasn’t a single hour of silence. You heard torture nonstop. Screams. Electric shocks to genitals. People drowned in water. Men raped. Filmed. Broken. One commander told others: “Do anything you want to him — just leave his right hand.” This went on day and night. Natalia survived months of interrogations and abuse before being dumped 160 km from home — without documents, money, or a phone. It took her three days to return. This is what russia does. This is not the cruelty of a few men. It is the method of a state. Organized. Repeated. Protected. russia turned torture into routine. And every level of that system must answer for it.