This is the latest instalment of a major investigation about how the Russian authorities in occupied Crimea have turned abduction into deliberate policy. In the first part ("Abductions in Crimea after the full-scale invasion: secret detention centres, Putin's classified decree and hundreds of names"), we looked at how abductions, a practice developed by the Federal Security Service (FSB), became even more cruel, opaque and widely used as a tool to suppress dissent following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. New detention centres have appeared that hold suspects in secret for months, or even years. Some centres are so secret that cell windows are permanently darkened, and it's extremely hard to figure out who runs them. All efforts to identify those who have disappeared are frustrated by the coordinated obfuscation of the state: the FSB, prison service, prosecutors and the courts. The number of abductions we have confirmed in Crimea – 230 – is clearly not a final figure.
Today we publish the next part of our investigation about how Russia turned Crimea into a transit hub for those abducted in other occupied territories. Most often, these are people from Ukraine's Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. In addition, we look at another change that has taken place since the full-scale invasion: the abduction of women. Prior to 2022, there were only four abductions of women – and all of them dated from the first days of the occupation. Today, the number of confirmed abductions of women is over 30.