KYIV – More than 200 Ukrainian POWs have died in prison since Russia’s full-scale invasion three years ago.

Abuse inside Russian prisons likely contributed to many of these deaths, adding to evidence that Russia is systematically brutalizing captured soldiers, according to officials from human rights groups, the U.N. and the Ukrainian government, and a Ukrainian medical examiner who has performed dozens of POW autopsies.

Ukrainian officials say the frequent repatriation of bodies that are mutilated and decomposed point to an effort by Russia to cover up alleged torture, starvation and poor health care at dozens of prisons and detention centers across Russia and occupied Ukraine.

Ukraine is planning to bring war crimes charges against Russia at the International Criminal Court over its mistreatment of captured soldiers, relying on the testimony of former POWs and evidence collected during autopsies of repatriated bodies.

Russian authorities did not respond to requests for comment. They have previously accused Ukraine of mistreating Russian POWs — allegations the U.N. has partially backed up, though it says Ukraine’s violations are far less common and severe than what Russia is accused of.

Mistreatment of POWs is ‘systematic’

A 2024 U.N. report found that 95% of released Ukrainian POWs had endured “systematic” torture and ill-treatment. Prisoners described beatings, electric shocks, suffocation, sexual violence, prolonged stress positions, mock executions and sleep deprivation.

“This conduct could not be more unlawful,” said Danielle Bell, the U.N.’s top human rights monitor in Ukraine.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International documented widespread torture of Ukrainian POWs in Russia. Its report was especially critical of Russia’s secrecy regarding the whereabouts and condition of POWs, saying it refused to grant rights groups or health workers access to its prisons, leaving families in the dark for months or years about their loved ones.

A major prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine took place over the weekend.

Of the more than 5,000 POWs Russia has repatriated to Ukraine, at least 206 died in captivity, including more than 50 when an explosion ripped through a Russian-controlled prison barracks, according to the Ukrainian government. An additional 245 Ukrainian POWs were killed by Russian soldiers on the battlefield, according to Ukrainian prosecutors.

The toll of dead POWs is expected to rise as more bodies are returned and identified, but forensic experts face significant challenges in determining causes of death.

In some cases, internal organs are missing. Other times, it appears as if bruises or injuries have been hidden or removed.

Piecing together how POWs died

Inna Padei performs autopsies in a bright, sterile room inside a morgue in Kyiv, where the air is thick with the sour-sweet smell of human decomposition.

Since the start of the war, she has examined dozens of repatriated bodies of POWs, which are delivered in refrigerated trucks and arrive zipped up in black plastic bags.

The body of one former POW recently examined by Padei had an almond-sized fracture on the right side of its skull that suggested the soldier was struck by a blunt object – a blow potentially strong enough to have killed him instantly, or shortly after, she said.

“These injuries may not always be the direct cause of death,” Padei said, “but they clearly indicate the use of force and torture against the servicemen.”

The Associated Press interviewed relatives of 21 Ukrainian POWs who died in captivity. Autopsies performed in Ukraine found that five of these POWs died of heart failure, including soldiers who were 22, 39 and 43. Four others died from tuberculosis or pneumonia, and three others perished, respectively, from an infection, asphyxia and a blunt force head wound.

Padei said cases like these — and others she has seen — are red flags, suggesting that physical abuse and untreated injuries and illness likely contributed to many soldiers’ deaths.

“Under normal or humane conditions, these would not have been fatal,” Padei said.

One soldier’s story

Ukrainian soldier Serhii Hryhoriev told his family “everything will be all right” so often during brief phone calls from the front that his wife and two daughters took it to heart. His younger daughter, Oksana, tattooed the phrase on her wrist as a talisman.

Even after Hryhoriev was captured by the Russian army in 2022, his anxious family clung to the belief that he would ultimately be OK. After all, Russia is bound by international law to protect prisoners of war.

When Hryhoriev finally came home, though, it was in a body bag.

A Russian death certificate said the 59-year-old died of a stroke. But a Ukrainian autopsy and a former POW who was detained with him tell a different story about how he died – one of violence and medical neglect at the hands of his captors.

Oleksii Honcharov lived in the same prison barracks as Hryhoriev starting in the fall of 2022. Over a period of months, he witnessed Hryhoriev regularly beaten at the Kamensk-Shakhtinsky Correctional Colony in southwest Russia.

Over time, Hryhoriev began showing signs of physical decline: dizziness, fatigue and, eventually, an inability to walk without help.

But instead of being sent to a hospital, Hryhoriev was moved to a tiny cell that was isolated from other prisoners. “It was damp, cold, with no lighting at all,” recalled Honcharov, who was repatriated to Ukraine in February as part of a prisoner swap.

About a month later, on May 20, 2023, Hryhoriev died in that cell, Honcharov said.

An autopsy performed in Ukraine said he bled to death after blunt trauma to his abdomen that also damaged his spleen.

To honor him, Hryhoriev’s wife and older daughter, Yana, followed Oksana’s lead and tattooed their wrists with the optimistic expression he had drilled into them.

“Now we have an angel in the sky watching over us,” Halyna said. “We believe everything will be all right.”

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Associated Press reporters Yehor Konovalov, Alex Babenko and Anton Shtuka in Kyiv, and Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.