The EU has imposed sanctions on 15 people and an entity over the torture of Ukrainian POWs and detained civilians, the Council of the EU announced. The 13 July listings reach prison officials in occupied Ukraine and inside Russia, and one detention facility. Among the targets are people tied to the Olenivka mass killing and the jail where journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna died.

Olenivka's deputy chief held responsible for mass killing of POWs

Eight Russians and one entity fall under the EU's Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime. The most prominent is Dmitry Neelov, first deputy head of the Olenivka prison in occupied Donetsk Oblast. The Council says he took part in torturing, beating, and humiliating Ukrainian POWs and civilian captives. It blames him directly for the prisoners' mass deaths at the colony on 28–29 July 2022. He deliberately held back evacuating wounded prisoners after a Russian attack on the colony. A number of senior officers and colony employees who degraded prisoners join Neelov on the list.

A UN expert panel confirmed in 2025 that Russia carried out the strike that killed over 50 Ukrainian defenders there. 

Torture as staff entertainment at Penal Colony No 7

Alexei Khavetsky, security chief of Penal Colony No 7 in the village of Pakino in Russia's Vladimir Oblast, ran the systematic abuse of Ukrainian POWs. Under his supervision, prisoners suffered electric shocks, deliberate starvation, sexual abuse, and extreme humiliation "for the entertainment of the colony staff," the Council states.

Explore further

Investigation: Russia blew up 53 Ukrainian POWs in Olenivka prison, then honored killers with medals

FSB officer tortured civilians in three occupied oblasts

The list also includes Yan Zanevsky, an officer of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). He took part in the illegal detention and torture of civilians in occupied parts of Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. He beat, suffocated, and sexually abused detainees.

The Taganrog jail where Roshchyna died becomes a sanctioned entity

The one entity designated is Pre-trial detention center-2 in Taganrog, known as SIZO-2. Russia holds Ukrainian POWs and civilians there, women and journalists among them. Systemic torture there has led to deaths. Journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna spent a year detained there before her death, and her body bore numerous torture marks.

Explore further

Kyiv buried journalist Victoria Roshchyna, murdered in Russian captivity

Whole command chain of Penal Colony No 10 listed

Seven more individuals fall under a separate regime targeting human rights abuses inside Russia. They are Alexander Gnutov, who heads Penal Colony No 10 in Udarny village, his five deputies, and Galina Mokshanova, head of its medical unit. The colony has held hundreds of Ukrainian POWs and civilians captured in occupied territories. Former detainees describe beatings, electric shocks, mock executions, sexual violence, stress positions that caused trophic ulcers, and refusals of medical care. Detained civilians endure the same abuse as the POWs, with no trial and no legal status.

All listed individuals and the entity face an asset freeze, and EU citizens and companies cannot make funds available to them. 

Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) has detained eight more people accused of promoting Russia's war from inside the country, the SBU reported. The suspects allegedly backed the invasion online, called for heavier strikes on Ukraine, and justified Russian war crimes. They face years in prison.

Suspects detained across six regions

• The cases stretch from Kyiv to Odesa. In Kyiv, SBU cyber specialists detained a security company's cash courier. He allegedly spread falsehoods about Ukraine's Defense Forces and called for the country's seizure. On work trips, he allegedly photographed checkpoints and mobilization patrols in secret. He then marked their locations and leaked them with calls to disrupt the draft.
• In Sumy, investigators served notice of suspicion to a Telegram channel administrator. He allegedly praised Russian fighters for shelling the regional center. The blogger also allegedly urged Russia to strike Ukraine with a "Sarmat" nuclear missile.

Explore further

SBU names 10 Russians tied to “human safari” drone hunt on civilians in Kherson

• In Dnipro, the SBU exposed an alleged member of an underground "fake people's power" cell. The woman allegedly called for a coup and denied Russian war crimes, including mass strikes on Ukrainian cities. She allegedly posted hostile content to Facebook and TikTok pages reaching almost 8,000 users. Officers also detained a Kryvyi Rih resident who allegedly urged Russia to hit Kyiv with nuclear weapons.

A soldier who denied the war

• In Chernihiv Oblast, SBU military counterintelligence and the State Bureau of Investigation exposed a mobilized serviceman. He allegedly denied that Russia's full-scale invasion was even happening. Witnesses say he regularly backed the Kremlin and justified Russian war crimes. Officers detained him in Poltava, where he had fled his unit after training.

From Zhytomyr chats to TikTok streams aired from Russia

• In Zhytomyr Oblast, cyber specialists exposed two unemployed suspects who allegedly praised the Kremlin and Russian armed groups. One allegedly justified Russian war crimes in Bucha. The other allegedly called for more strikes on Defense Forces positions with guided aerial bombs.
• In Odesa Oblast, counterintelligence officers detained an agitator who allegedly urged Russia to seize the region and "annex" it. To spread the propaganda, he allegedly joined online broadcasts aired from Russian territory.

Explore further

Ukraine sentences FSB agent to 15 years for guiding Russian bombs onto Pokrovsk

Linguistic analyses confirmed the suspects' information-subversion activity served Russia, the SBU said. They have been served notice of suspicion under several articles of Ukraine's Criminal Code, including attempts to seize state power, war propaganda, and justifying Russia's aggression. 

Explore further

Kyiv IT worker jailed for life — court finds he helped Russia strike the power grid that heats his city

Recent SBU cases

Russia's pull on people inside Ukraine shows up again and again — it keeps trying to enlist Ukrainians through Telegram for sabotage and spying. The SBU and the National Police deal with such cases on a regular basis.

On 23 June, the SBU reported detaining another spotter for Russian air attacks on Zaporizhzhia — a local mobilized man who left his unit to work with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). Separately, the SBU and National Police foiled a plot by two FSB agents to blow up an administrative building in central Kyiv.

On 17 June, the SBU detained a Kherson region woman suspected of collaboration and pro-Russian propaganda during the occupation. On 15 June, officers held a Chornomorsk woman who allegedly rigged "video traps" on the Kyiv Reservoir to guide strikes on the capital, including the 24 May 2026 attack. Earlier, a court sentenced a former Shostka councilman to 15 years for guiding Russian strikes in Sumy Oblast.

Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) detained a Ukrainian Air Force major suspected of spying for Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the agency reported on July 3.

The alleged spy, arrested during a special operation in Lviv Oblast, was reportedly recruited through his ex-wife, a former military officer now cooperating with Russian forces in occupied Melitopol.

According to the SBU, the officer was gathering coordinates of operational airfields, logistics hubs, and maintenance centers used by Ukrainian combat aircraft. If successful, Russia intended to launch missile and drone strikes on those locations.

The SBU said the operation was coordinated with Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief and that the agent was supervised by Aleksandr Belodedov, an officer in the FSB's Alpha special operations unit.

Authorities said they intercepted the agent before any damage was done, documenting his communication with Russian intelligence and securing military sites at risk.

The suspect has been charged with high treason committed during wartime by a group of individuals under Ukraine's Criminal Code. He remains in custody and faces life imprisonment with asset seizure.

His ex-wife was also charged in absentia for treason during wartime.

‘Major casualties among civilians’ — US freeze on air defense missiles is terrible news for Ukraine

The halting of deliveries of air defense missiles from the U.S. will lead to“major casualties among civilians,” a deputy commander in Ukraine’s air defense told the Kyiv Independent. Politico reported on July 1 that the U.S. Defense Department (DOD) had halted shipments of some weapons previously

The Kyiv IndependentKollen Post

Editor's note: The story was updated after the Sputnik news agency disclosed the names of those detained in Baku.

Azerbaijani police detained two alleged agents of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) on June 30 following searches at the Baku office of the Russian state-controlled news agency Sputnik, the Azerbaijani news outlet Apa.az reported.

Sputnik later elaborated that Igor Kartavykh, chief editor of Sputnik Azerbaijan, and Yevgeniy Belousov, managing editor, had been detained in Baku. The agency called the allegations that the detainees were FSB agents "absurd."

The move comes amid a major deterioration in Russian-Azerbaijani relations that followed the detention of over 50 Azerbaijanis as part of a murder investigation in Yekaterinburg on June 27. Two people died during the detentions, and three others were seriously injured.

The searches in the office of the Russian propaganda media outlet, which operates as a local branch of Russian state news agency Russia Today (RT), began on June 30.

The Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russia Today, said that representatives of the Russian embassy in Baku were on their way to Sputnik's office. Sputnik employees were offline and probably did not have access to phones, she added.

According to Simonyan, some of Sputnik's employees were Russian citizens.

The Azerbaijani government ordered in February that the activities of Sputnik's Azerbaijani office be suspended.

The authorities said that the move was intended to ensure parity in the activities of Azerbaijan's state media abroad and foreign journalists in the country. This meant that the number of Sputnik Azerbaijan journalists working in Baku was to be equal to the number of journalists of the Azerbaijani news agency Azertadzh in Russia.

As a result, Sputnik Azerbaijan had to reduce its staff from 40 people to one but refused to do so and continued to operate despite the Azerbaijani government's decision, according to Apa.az.

As the Russian-Azerbaijani relations deteriorate, Azerbaijan has cancelled all planned cultural events hosted alongside Russian state and private organizations, the country's Culture Ministry announced on June 29.

The announcement followed the deaths of two Azerbaijani citizens during police raids in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said on June 28 that Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov had died during a raid carried out by Russian authorities. Azerbaijan called the killings "ethnically motivated" and "unlawful" actions.

Baku called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice and said it expected Moscow to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the incident.

In the meantime, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the detentions were carried out as part of an investigation into serious crimes. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that these were cases related to murders committed in 2001, 2010, and 2011.

Russia pulls its scientists out of Iranian nuclear plant, as Israeli strikes threaten decades of collaboration

Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities have alarmed none more than Russia, the country that first brought nuclear power to Iran in defiance of Western objections. We’re “millimeters from catastrophe,” said Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on June 18 in response to a bombing campaign that Israel launched against Iran on June 13. Decades of conflict with the West have united Iran and Russia, despite a cultural gulf between the two nations that dwarfs the Caspian Sea that physically di

The Kyiv IndependentKollen Post

Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023 authorized the ordering of at least two attempts to assassinate Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon, Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) head Vasyl Maliuk told media on June 23,  RBC-Ukraine reports.

Gordon is a prominent journalist and media personality popular in both Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries, known for his sharp criticism of Russian aggression. His YouTube channel has 4.5 million subscribers.

"Gordon triggers Russians. He has a large audience in Russia and in the (Russian) occupied territories (of Ukraine)," Maliuk said. "There are two networks that worked on Gordon that we can speak (publicly) about."

According to the SBU, the first network was led by a former lawmaker from the now-banned pro-Russian Party of Regions, originally from Poltava Oblast. The agency did not name the lawmaker.

The former MP was allegedly tasked by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) with coordinating surveillance and preparations for a strike that would kill Gordon.

"The plan was to use a homemade explosive device or coordinate a missile or a drone strike — but only if Gordon's presence in the targeted house was confirmed," Maliuk said.

The SBU had already been investigating the ex-lawmaker for involvement in a separate railway bombing case in Poltava Oblast when the assassination plot was uncovered. The group was arrested before executing the plan.

Join our community

Support independent journalism in Ukraine. Join us in this fight.

Support Us

The second assassination team, Maliuk said, was a criminal group from Dagestan working secretly for the FSB under the cover of being fugitives from Russian law enforcement.

"They sent this individual here long before the full-scale war. He carried out FSB tasks all the time — very professionally, very covertly," Maliuk said.

The group monitored Gordon's movements and residence, planning to assassinate him either with a short-barreled weapon if he was alone, or with a rifle and follow-up pistol shot if accompanied by a bodyguard.

The SBU detained the group, and its leader confessed to preparing the hit on Moscow's orders. He said he had been promised $400,000 for the killing.

Gordon, who has become a high-profile figure on Ukraine's information front, regularly uses his platform to expose Russian disinformation and advocate for Ukrainian sovereignty.

Lion attacks collaborator at safari park in Russian-occupied Crimea

Following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Oleg Zubkov renounced his Ukrainian citizenship and began cooperating with the Russian authorities.

The Kyiv IndependentKateryna Hodunova

Ukraine's security service (SBU) is teaching teenagers how to avoid recruitment by Russian intelligence online, the New York Times (NYT) reported on June 21.

"Maybe not all of these special operations are reported in the media — but believe me, the enemy is not sleeping... They are working actively and carrying out illegal activities, as strange as it may sound, directly inside your phones," SBU spokesperson Roksolana Yavorska-Isaienko told students.

Approximately 22% of Ukrainians recruited by Russian intelligence to conduct sabotage or terrorist attacks are minors, Artem Dekhtiarenko, SBU spokesperson, said on April 2.

Russian intelligence attempts to recruit Ukrainian civilians online, offering easy money in return for sharing sensitive data or preparing sabotage or terrorist acts.

Russian intelligence finds its recruits using social platforms, including Telegram, Discord, and TikTok.

Unsuspecting teenagers are often offered hundreds or even thousands of dollars to conduct simpler tasks such as delivering packages or taking photos of energy sites, the NYT reports.

More serious tasks are commonly assigned to teenagers once they have been blackmailed for conducting less serious operations beforehand or when their phones are hacked to reveal compromising photos.

Russian intelligence is actively attempting to recruit Ukrainian nationals for illegal operations across the EU, Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) said on June 2.

"The recruitment of Ukrainians for hostile operations in Europe is yet another tool of hybrid aggression that the Russian Federation is waging against Ukraine and the entire European community," HUR said.

The SBU caught a Russian agent as he was filming a military airfield in preparation for a Russian strike, the agency reported on June 15.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) recruited the unemployed 24-year-old via the Telegram messaging app to collect coordinates for air attacks on airfields and logistic depots, the SBU said.

The Russian FSB allegedly offered "easy money" and instructed the recruit to find military facilities and carry out reconnaissance on the ground.

Love, sex, survival — Ukrainian author on how war shapes intimacy in Ukraine

In Ukraine, Russia’s war of aggression has upended not just borders but the country’s cultural landscape. Conversations about identity, gender, and sexuality have gained new urgency. Women are increasingly stepping into combat roles once dominated by men, while relationships can dissolve as quickly as they form. Many people

The Kyiv IndependentKate Tsurkan

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) caught a Russian agent red-handed as he was filming a military airfield in preparation for a Russian strike, the agency reported on June 15.

According to the SBU, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) recruited the unemployed 24-year-old via the Telegram messaging app to collect coordinates for air attacks on airfields and logistic depots.

The FSB had allegedly instructed him to find military facilities and carry out reconnaissance on the ground in exchange for “easy money.”

The man was detained outside an airfield in Rivne Oblast while filming its outer perimeter with a hidden camera in his car. The SBU seized a phone and the camera on the scene, while other evidence was taken from the agent’s apartment.

If found guilty, he faces life imprisonment for high treason.

The SBU regularly announces it has foiled Russian agents and terrorist plots against military and civilian targets. The FSB usually targets unemployed people, those with criminal records, or addicts, according to the SBU's data.

In April, the SBU detained an instructor at a training center in Lviv Oblast who was planning to assassinate the base's commanders. That same month, the SBU detained nine FSB agents, including five minors, for plotting terrorist attacks in central and eastern Ukraine.

More than a fifth of FSB recruits in Ukraine are minors.

Power cut off in Russia’s Kaliningrad in sabotage operation, Ukrainian military intelligence says

In the early hours of June 14, Ukrainian agents drained the coolant from the substation’s power transformer before setting the facility on fire.

The Kyiv IndependentDominic Culverwell