Occupation interrogations: russian forces asked Ukrainians about Zelenskyy, Bandera, and biolabs, human rights activists reveal

During the russian occupation of Ukraine’s northern regions, civilians faced not only demands to confess ties to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and disclose russian positions but were also interrogated about biological weapons being developed in laboratories in Ukraine and the whereabouts of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as well as nationalist figure Stepan Bandera.

This was detailed by Anna Rassamakhina, Head of the War and Justice Department at the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR), during the presentation of the report “Anatomy of Systematic Crime: How russia Persecutes Civilians” at Media Center Ukraine.

“The questions posed to detainees—whether during interrogations, street detentions, or home raids—were strikingly similar,” Rassamakhina explained. “These questions may seem meaningless to us, yet they were repeatedly asked. For instance, detainees were often accused of cooperating with the Ukrainian Armed Forces or betraying the russians, with demands to confess. However, many witnesses also reported bizarre lines of questioning. There were inquiries about biolabs, Zelenskyy’s location, and even about where Bandera lives. Quite remarkably, a Federal Security Service (FSB) officer conducting interrogations at the Hostomel airport once seriously posed this question,” she said.

The findings presented are based on 143 in-depth interviews with victims and witnesses. These accounts were analyzed using the specialized I-DOC database, which maps connections between individual episodes of reported crimes.

Read more: https://mediacenter.org.ua/news