FSB's 'Kill List': Kremlin Targeted Activists, Officials, Members Of Vulnerable Populations In Kherson, U.S. Researchers Say

A recently released U.S. report about disappearances and detentions in Kherson Oblast provides confirmation about the fears expressed prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that the Kremlin and its military, security services would use targeted lists to capture, detain, and in some cases allegedly kill members of civil society, government officials, and members of vulnerable populations such as ethnic groups, according to the authors, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"Our evidence shows that these lists were prepared likely before the invasion but have been added to and edited afterwards, that they use social security records, that they use information from school records and principals and information about residents from building managers in apartment complexes," Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health told reporters during a briefing organized by the State Department's Washington Press Center.

According to him, there’s also evidence that Russia’s forces have been using photographs of attendees at protests and that they’ve been targeting veterans, specifically of fighting in Donbas, members of the law enforcement community, emergency services personnel.

"And they’ve also been targeting Crimean Tatar leaders, especially affiliates of local Tatar groups... And they have been targeting protesters and online activists... It was a planned purge of the population. They took everyone who could in any way resist” he said.

More than two weeks after Russians retreated from the region, the Conflict Observatory said they documented 226 extrajudicial detentions and forced disappearances in Kherson, which Kremlin forces occupied for 8 months. Most of the detentions and disappearances were carried out by the Russian military and FSB security agency, and half of those seized do not appear to have been released.

Most of the research material was drawn prior to the liberation of Kherson, operations director Caitlin Howarth said. "However, given that fact, it’s important to understand that these are likely significantly undercounting other new facts that are likely now going to be present on the ground," she added.

As for methodology, the individual accounts recorded are gathered from a variety of different locations. social media posts – these are user-generated documents that are posted by the individuals themselves and in many cases by families or eyewitnesses to their detention or abduction, other instances related to how they were detained or just – or potentially disappeared.

"In some cases we also were able to document individual accounts based on the statements of governments of either Ukraine or Russia itself," Howarth explained. "In other instances we were able to document individual cases based on news media reports that were generated on their behalf.  Some of these were generated by human rights organizations."

Asked by TURAN's correspondent whether the research findings were reflection of Russia's gross human rights violations both at home and different other conflict zones, Raymond said, "sadly, there was nothing that we found that was particularly surprising for those who have studied the methods and record of the FSB in terms of their role in detention and interrogation."

He went on to add, "Impunity for past crimes is the most effective recipe for the commission of future crimes.  The culture of impunity that has existed in Russia in the Putin regime and the actions of security services on Russia’s people show clearly that the behavior in Kherson is not an anomaly, it is simply an import into the Kherson Oblast of alleged methods used within Russia by security services there on their own people."

"Impunity for crimes in the past will lead to crimes in today and the future" Raymond concluded.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.