Photo: Building in Kivertsi under renovation – Garde Consulting for Nefco Initiated as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, ‘EU Support for Urgent Housing Needs for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Ukraine’ funded by the European Union and managed by Nefco aims to provide accommodation for Ukrainian citizens forced to flee their homes as a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation Project implementations in ten cities in western and central Ukraine are currently ongoing most of which are expected to be completed by the end of 2023 The action is being implemented in small and medium-sized municipalities in western and central Ukraine Existing municipal buildings are currently being renovated and refurbished in ten cities: Chernivtsi The total EU contribution is EUR 19.4 million with between EUR 1.5 million and EUR 2.5 million being allocated per project depending on the scope and needs of the communities The grant investment includes support for technical design “We are very pleased that through this action we are able to give the suffering Ukrainian population urgent and much-needed support and help create satisfactory living conditions for IDPs in their new homes,” says Julia Shevchuk Ongoing projects are directed at restoring renovating and repurposing existing municipal buildings All projects have passed the procurement stage and construction work is underway in most of the communities The measures being implemented include internal repair works replacement of windows and doors and building of outdoor recreation areas Renovation work on the initial housing facilities is expected to be completed during the autumn with all ten projects expected to be finished by the end of 2023 The aim is to achieve a 30% improvement in the energy efficiency of the renovated buildings compared to their former state while the new buildings shall be at least 10% more energy efficient than required by local legislation Some 1,800 IDPs will benefit from receiving accommodation and access to basic municipal services This action is funded by the European Union and managed by Nefco It is part of wider efforts to rebuild Ukraine greener and better by using green construction materials applying energy- and resource-saving measures and reducing waste from construction and demolition Nefco is currently managing three more programmes dedicated to providing housing for IDPs and aiding the recovery of critical infrastructure that will strengthen the resilience and capacity of Ukrainian communities to accommodate newcomers from the regions most affected by the war The Neighbourhood Investment Platform (NIP) is a mechanism aimed at mobilising additional funding to finance capital-intensive infrastructure projects in EU partner countries covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in sectors such as transport mainly through investment grants and risk capital operations targeting small and medium-sized enterprises The NIP strives to pool grant resources from the EU budget and EU Member States and use them to leverage loans from European Financial Institutions as well as contributions from the ENP partner countries themselves the EU backs its neighbours’ priorities and supports them in carrying out key investments and boosting economic development You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed Цей веб-сайт зберігає файли cookie на вашому комп'ютері Activists blame the management of the State Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" for tolerating such illegal actions With the tacit consent of forestry officials hundreds of ancient trees are being illegally felled in Polissia and the Carpathians This was announced by members of the Ukrainian Nature Protection Group (UPG) on Facebook They drew attention to a new trend in the State Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" not having the opportunity to obtain documents for felling old forests foresters cut them down without any documents Specialists of the group examined the place of arbitrary felling of fir trees It was previously discovered by the State Environmental Inspection of the Transcarpathian Region UPG analyst Petro Testov says that more than four dozen tree stumps and large spruce logs remained on the spot He claims that such a felling could not have taken place without the knowledge of the branch management the analyst gives the following arguments: "Forestry workers should definitely have seen such large amounts of felling" He suspects that local law enforcement agencies may also be involved in the "crushing" of this log house "But if the head of the Kivertsi branch remained in his position does it mean that the State Enterprise "Lisa Ukrainy" completely tolerates such actions?" – asked UPG activists They called on the law enforcement agencies to bring those responsible for this illegal logging to justice The UPG also appealed to the Minister of Environmental Protection with a request to show political will and create new and expand existing national parks within the boundaries of the State Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine": "Black Forest" In September, EcoPolitic told about the fact that the deputy head of the Polissky Forestry Office of the State Specialized Economic Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" condemned up to 5 years of imprisonment for illegal enrichment and 104 million hryvnias seized from him during the investigation were confiscated for the benefit of the state We also reported on request of European manufacturers to the European Commission to postpone the implementation of the EU regulation on deforestation This looks especially cynical in times of full-scale war and catastrophic lack of funding Journalists suspect this may be a way to hide additional income All of the published cases have already gone to court and some of them have already been sentenced The use of materials posted on the EcoPolicy media platform is permitted only if the link to the EcoPolicy is provided and for online publications - the placement of a direct hyperlink to the page where the original material is posted The editors may not share the point of view stated in the author's material The advertiser is responsible for the accuracy of information published in promotional materials How Ukrainian prisoners are tortured and killed—stories from one Russian detention center Читати українською Vyazemskoye Detention Center-2 appears to be an ordinary facility within the Russian "penitentiary" system it can be boldly called a "death camp." The Russians have proven to be much more cunning and more intelligent than the Nazis during World War II who built specialized facilities to exterminate their enemies the Russians do not have specialized facilities for holding Ukrainian prisoners It is as if no one is in Russian captivity They have simply "scattered" Ukrainian prisoners across their detention facilities they physically and mentally break and destroy them Texty.org.ua decided to investigate one specific place where Ukrainian prisoners are tortured This is Vyazemskoye Detention Center-2—a seemingly unremarkable facility that has become a place of torture for Ukrainian prisoners we discovered another problem—the Ukrainian government's unpreparedness to clearly emphasize that today we are dealing with mass crimes against humanity A paradoxical situation has arisen: due to bureaucracy Ukrainian officials simply copy the falsified diagnosis given by enemy doctors instead of providing their own definition of what caused the person's death and Ukrainian officials are essentially confirming another Russian lie claiming that another Ukrainian prisoner simply died of "tuberculosis." the official Ukrainian forensic examination ignores the fact that the Russians did everything possible to destroy people and that tuberculosis is a consequence of the torture and abuse that Ukrainian captives endure daily in detention We hope this material will help address these problems his family was informed that his body had been returned from captivity he and a group of comrades were captured near Novobakhmutivka I learned about his captivity from Russian websites where he was wounded and had his head bandaged I received confirmation from the International Committee of the Red Cross I received the only letter from my husband during all this time I am in captivity in the Russian Federation and provide all necessary medical assistance I am waiting for an exchange and a quick return home." I received confirmation that my husband was alive I didn't just wait for him to come back from captivity a released cellmate of my husband told me that he was doing well Now I understand that he said this just to not upset me a representative of Lubinets (Dmytro Lubinets is the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada for Human Rights - Texty.org.ua) called me and said that there was an opportunity to send things and a letter to my husband and sent them to the National Information Bureau I received information from another cellmate of my husband I heard that my husband was being tortured a Kyiv investigator called me and said there was an exchange of bodies in December 2023 I couldn’t believe it; I said they had made a mistake and hung up the investigator sent me a photo of the tattoo When we arrived in Kyiv for body identification on January 25 What struck me the most was how emaciated the body was The pathologist said that he weighed less than fifty kilograms he weighed 110 kg and was physically healthy What was left of him were just bones and skin There were signs of torture all over his body His cellmates later told me how they were tortured They were beaten either in the cell or taken outside They called him a Banderite saying all Banderites must be killed and cut to pieces they were forced to stand motionless for hours The date of death was recorded as November 16 According to the conclusion of our Ukrainian pathologist it was "tuberculosis." We are going to challenge this conclusion many bodies of guys were returned from captivity and they all had tuberculosis or ischemic heart disease written as the cause of death I couldn't bury my husband because we disagreed with this medical certificate And wherever I turned regarding this forensic expert's conclusion even at the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War they told me they couldn't influence the expert's decision The same goes for the conclusions about the cause of death I don’t understand why our side essentially accepts the Russian position attributing the causes of death simply to illness we said we disagreed and wouldn’t accept such a death certificate The cause of death there is listed as pneumonia And it says he died in the Vyazma Central District Hospital And the most interesting thing: when we were issued the death certificate in Lutsk There is not a word about him being in captivity it turns out that the Russian side is so humane that they took him they responded to me: "What can we do if those were the documents he had with him?" the materials of the criminal case have been sent to the prosecutor's office They have supposedly reclassified the case under Article 438 Part 1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (cruel treatment of prisoners of war or civilians — Texty.org.ua) I hope that proper conclusions will be drawn they wanted to install a memorial plaque and said "We will write that your husband died in captivity." And I told them "It's better not to put anything at all he was killed defending his homeland." his relatives were informed that he was returned from captivity dead everything was fine: he served as a reconnaissance machine gunner and performed all duties This was not his first military experience When everything started in the east in 2014 He didn't hesitate and went immediately although I told him he could avoid it because we had a small child he was in the 28th Mechanized Brigade and had the status of a combat participant He wanted to join the marines and get the beret My husband didn't say where exactly they were We later learned they were at the Ilyich plant it seemed everyone was calling their relatives then It was their last chance to talk to loved ones He didn't say they were being taken captive A friend sent me a video where it was clear he was in captivity and looked for information about all those released but no one had seen him or could say where he was we learned from one of the released prisoners that Vitalii was alive and was in Vyazma The only thing was that Vitalii was officially confirmed as a prisoner by the Red Cross Two released prisoners said he was sick but alive One of these men had been with him in the same cell in 2022-2023 and the other had seen Vitalii alive just two weeks before his death Vitalii was already suffering from tuberculosis I noticed that those who are released from captivity do not want to talk much about all the torture They were fed the same food given to pigs and only two spoonfuls they would place a shocker to their ear to revive them and then continue How can one not get sick after such treatment the guys said that they could deliberately put a person with tuberculosis in the cell to infect others We contacted the Coordination Headquarters and the Security Service of Ukraine asking to include him in the lists as critically ill an investigator called and offered to look at the photos saying I mightn't have to go and could identify him that way One side of the body was already partially decomposed it was clear that he had been tortured and beaten We decided to go for the identification because the photos didn't show everything I needed to see the legs—he had a nail deformity His sister and I arrived at the morgue in Poltava Two days had passed since the investigator's call—the bodies were not in refrigerators just lying in the morgue in the bags they were brought in the investigator told me that in medical terms He also said that the forensic expert did not find any signs of torture he told us that even not allowing someone to sleep is considered torture Everything pointed to the fact that he was beaten and tortured Another thing—I found out that Vitalii’s body was returned to Ukraine on March 15 I asked why they didn’t call the family immediately when the body arrived in Ukraine but waited for a month They answered that many bodies had arrived But couldn’t they have stored the body properly So that the family could come and properly take their loved one We closed the doors so no one could see how and what was being put into the coffin Because it was the first time in our city that someone had died in captivity The forensic expert didn’t write where exactly Vitalii died So it turns out he died in an unknown country and unknown city And it was written that he died simply from a disease There is no mention that he had been in captivity for two years and was tortured there I can’t get a death certificate because the place of death is not indicated they say there is no information about the country or place where Vitalii died the same investigator confirmed to me that he was brought from Vyazma as written in the conclusion from tuberculosis He bravely defended his country and died for it faced the full-scale invasion in Luhansk region he was transferred to Vyazemskoye Detention Center He has returned from captivity and is currently being treated for tuberculosis and hepatitis B The military serviceman Oleksii Kretsu shares: We were held for two months: first in the Luhansk Detention Center we were finally brought to Vyazemskoye Detention Center we were kept for two days with our hands tied and our eyes covered a total of 256 of our prisoners were brought to this detention center As soon as they removed the restraints from our hands and the blindfolds from our eyes they gave us a "welcome"—beating us with shockers which lasted a maximum of 15 seconds per person The first ones got water as hot as boiling From the moment we arrived at the detention center we were in complete informational isolation they had nothing to feed us with or nowhere to keep us they said they wouldn't kill us but wouldn't let us return home whole either The same shocker was used on us without hesitation You stand facing the door: you can't even lower your head because they consider you to be sleeping You were in trouble if you turned your head or leaned on the bed The small cells were mostly unheated during winter You had to stand for hours in thin prison clothes We were literally catching each other during formation because the guys were starting to lose consciousness They fed us grains soaked in boiling water and often in cold water The only thing that tasted good was jelly with a piece of white bread They also gave us mashed potatoes made from greenish potatoes We were allowed to stay in the toilet for no more than three minutes It didn't matter what you were doing there; you had only three minutes for everything When they led us to the bathhouse — in a column and a command sounded: "Undress!" We undressed completely as our mothers gave birth to us hands behind the back ("dolphin" position) And they loved to beat us in the genitals with boots I lost half of my teeth during these interrogations And what they did to the machine gunners or snipers during interrogations — it's terrifying to imagine So the guys who were transferred told us that there was a marine-assault trooper in their cell They beat him with a lock wrapped in an army towel Above our cell was a cell with convicts who served in the pre-trial detention center and the building where the interrogations took place was about 70 meters from our block they beat this guy so hard that he could be heard over those speakers Severely ill people were transferred to solitary confinement There was one guy who spent almost a year in solitary "How did you not go crazy there?" He said "I found some boards and imagined they were the wolf from 'Nu Pogodi!' and talked to them." He was transferred to solitary because he supposedly got tuberculosis the Russians keep not just minor offenders but mostly mentally ill and seriously ill people those who are rotting — they are all kept in solitary confinement an investigator came and said: "The Russian Federation gives you a chance to declare that you are alive write a letter home." They also gave us a template for writing a letter Senior Sailor Vladimir Alexandrovich Zelensky am in the captivity of the Russian Federation One of the guys decided to be smart and circled the letters V but the censorship of the detention center noticed it he limped and spoke as if his nose had been broken several times We were taken out for a walk to the prison yard and one of us decided to ask if we could write another letter to our relatives The fact is that we were always guarded by three lines of security and in purple — the detention center guards So it was to them that we asked if we could ask the detention center administration to give us the opportunity to write a letter And they were like: "Where the hell do you want to write a letter?" I replied that I was from the Mykolaiv region and it will come in handy." Then they asked and they said: "There is no such place anymore and they answered him in the same style: "No Odesa anymore You must understand that everything is now Russia — Odesa region They also asked if there was anyone from Lviv We were then in complete information isolation But what saved us was their inherent stupidity and there was news that the Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group had shelled the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant I told the guys in the cell that they probably haven't even taken Kherson Because GRADs work from a distance of a maximum of 25-30 kilometers So our GRADs couldn't be operating in such a deep rear an investigator came to us and said that he needed evidence of the atrocities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine He asked if any of us had heard or seen any atrocities by the Ukrainian military against civilians They were particularly interested in Mariupol When I told him that I was a border guard from Luhansk When he realized that he would get nothing from us he said we would "play the score game." For three nights It is when you stand in one position from morning till evening and returning them should take 120-130 seconds But the main thing is that no one sleeps at night and each one takes turns calling out their bed number He started screaming: "We are on a TV show they started giving him injections and pills Because he came back to our cell as a vegetable he had hematomas so swollen they looked like blisters He moved his hands like a robot; to clench his fist took him a minute and a half But the guard said that if he even lowered his head So we constantly told him: "Don't sleep." And he couldn't even respond to us because they had drugged him so much a representative of the Red Cross came to us Although the guys said he came again later This representative of the Red Cross first asked if we wanted to get Russian Federation citizenship we decided to be cunning and started telling him that we needed to contact our families somehow to consult this Red Cross representative turns to us and says Weren't you given the opportunity to contact them?" He then turns to the detention center administration and says "Did you not give them the opportunity to contact their families and all the prisoners were roughly speaking The International Committee of the Red Cross responded to the Texts' questions and made it clear that the organisation never offers prisoners to change their citizenship nor is it the task of anyone connected in any way with the International Red Cross," the response received by the editorial office reads From the first days of imprisonment until our release our brains were washed about how we are descendants of the traitor Hetman Mazepa who arranged massacres and killed women and children All this was detailed on A4 sheets given to us for learning One of them told the story of the "Volyn massacre." In particular there was a story about how Bandera's henchmen brought their superior five severed heads of Poles as a gift There was also a leaflet called "Odessa Khatyn" about the burning of pro-Russian militants in the House of Trade Unions The program "Besogon" (authored by Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov) was top-rated among the guards we learned that all Jews in Kyiv during World War II were shot by Ukrainians Ukrainians were Hitler's henchmen and are descendants of policemen there was the Russian anthem before breakfast They also conducted physical exercises with us but with limited food and constant beatings the guys lost consciousness during the exercises they reduced the exercise time to half an hour A guard could walk down the common corridor and suddenly command everyone to do fifty push-ups and count loudly But the strength was not there: some simulated push-ups some tried to hide in the dead zone from the camera They would tauntingly say: "You think you are so smart I dreamed of waking up somewhere in a sanatorium or not waking up at all The first death I witnessed happened in December It was Hrytsiuk from Volyn (we began the article with the story of Oleksandr's wife) One of the convicts working in the housekeeping unit said to the guard: "Boss To which he replied: "You're afraid of the living we watched one of the guards approach the solitary cell where Hrytsiuk was held worriedly saying they would bring him proper food it was clear that Hrytsiuk was already in a critical condition There was no question of staying in any Vyazma hospital we heard the medic say to write down the surname Hrytsiuk or Hrytsiv Texty.org.ua: From Kretsu's description it can be assumed that Hrytsiuk died in detention center No not in the inpatient department of the Vyazma Central Hospital It is a great pity that the Ukrainian side apparently simply duplicated the information from the Russians that Hrytsiuk was supposedly still alive when taken to the Vyazma hospital they tried to hide the fact that in a critical condition he was not provided with medical assistance the detention center's medic inquired about Hrytsiuk's fate only in the morning The physical appearance of Hrytsiuk's body convincingly indicates that the prisoner was deliberately starved and Vitalii Klochenko was a man with character And all the rot from the detention center didn't like such people I spent time with him in the cell from around when we were transferred to the first floor to the coldest cell we heard how he was being led to the bathhouse limp." I understand this was the result of interrogations They couldn't break him morally to take responsibility for murders or atrocities It has been three months since I started treatment But what worries me more than tuberculosis is something else I still can't recover from all of this I often dream of falling asleep here and waking up there And it is so scary that I wake up in a cold sweat According to media reports and relevant social media pages there was practically no writing about the life the lives of the ordinary staff were covered quite extensively There were detailed reports on the ceremonial induction of new employees at some World War II landmarks significant to Russians and the celebration of various odd anniversaries It was not possible to find the usual school excursions to penitentiary institutions typical of Russian life but they are more likely to be sent to correctional colonies for familiarization there was one notable feature about this facility they built a new wing for more than 200 people the informational activity around Detention Center No There is almost no public information about it It seems that its leaders are being replaced but it is unclear exactly when and under what circumstances these changes occur It can be said with some certainty that Viktor Naumenko was the head of this detention center in 2022 the position was filled by a representative of the detention center administration Andrey Martynov has consistently held leadership positions in the detention center he held the position of deputy head of the detention center It is also worth mentioning the direct head of all the detention centers in the Smolensk region This refers to the head of the "UFSIN" (Federal Penitentiary Service Administration) for the Smolensk region Here he is in his "parade" photograph adorned with badges and ribbons of orders for his heroic service There is an interesting detail about Alexander Trachuk this does not prevent him from "fruitfully" working for a system that destroys and breaks Ukrainian prisoners it is worth returning to the figure of Alexei Zakharov the current acting head of the Vyazma detention center who was present during the intake of Ukrainian prisoners to the detention center and it is most likely that he was one of the leaders of the shameful procedure of beating and humiliating the Ukrainian prisoners Here's what Kretzu recalls: "They dragged me into some basement and started beating me and this 'cupboard' (Alexei Zakharov - Texty.org.ua) without a mask He was the only one without a mask and balaclava 'Who are you?' I replied that I was a border guard they took me to a place where they twisted my arms and demanded I sign something I saw only one word - 'guilty.' Meanwhile As for the perpetrators of the beatings themselves we are talking about individuals so 'gray' and devoid of any (except a tendency towards sadism) qualities that it is difficult to find any interesting or valuable information about them Vladimir Petrov's life path is quite typical for an employee of the Russian punitive prison system where multiple cases of human rights violations were recorded and then endless service in the Vyazma detention center it is worth mentioning the representatives of the Russian state service who call themselves "church ministers of the Russian Orthodox Church." On the pages of Vyazma media one can find many mentions of some cooperation agreements between the Vyazma diocese and Detention Center-2 the "pastoral" cooperation of the ROC ministers and the representatives of the administration of Detention Center-2 did not in any way improve the quality of life for the Ukrainian prisoners and there were supposed to be two or three Bibles in the detention center One might think that Detention Center-2 in Vyazma plays a unique role in the torture of Ukrainian prisoners, but that is not the case. Similar things are likely happening in every Russian detention center where Ukrainian prisoners are held. According to the Media Initiative for Human Rights Ukrainian prisoners are held in 42 pre-trial detention centers and correctional colonies in Russia They are located both in the regions bordering Ukraine and deep within the country On the eve of the full-scale invasion or after February 24 Russian detainees remained in these places as staff To understand how widespread and typical this practice is in other places where Ukrainian prisoners are held TEXTY spoke with the parents of another Ukrainian soldier who died in Russian captivity a 22-year-old saxophonist of the military band of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade was captured in Mariupol in the first half of 2022 the band members and Sviatoslav primarily took an active part in the defense of the city they were captured and eventually ended up in the detention center of the Russian city of Kineshma We learned about what was happening in the detention center from a young man who was released from captivity and was undergoing rehabilitation because he was in bad shape They had video surveillance cameras everywhere guards immediately ran into the cell and beat them We know that the guards forced our son to sing The medical death certificate stated that he supposedly had a heart problem he was normally engaged in sports and rode a bicycle He had certain problems with the blood vessels in his nose Those who were with him in the cell said that he had headaches from time to time Maybe he started having blood pressure problems The guy who returned from captivity and gave us the information couldn't even walk when he came back And regardless of whether they were sick or had any issues and there was a puddle of blood by his bed They say he was so weak that he couldn't even carry his belongings with him The guys supposedly overheard a conversation between the guards: "I hit him Both when they were in Mariupol and in captivity saying everything would be fine and everyone would get out of captivity TEXTY: Considering all the terrible facts presented and that such things happen in different corners of Russia it is quite clear that this is not about an "excess of the executor" but about an absolutely clear state policy of Russia aimed at destroying both Ukrainian defenders and peaceful citizens The goal of this policy is clear and obvious - the physical destruction of Ukrainians and their moral breakdown All of this fits clearly into the policy of the Russian state and has a specific name - "genocide." 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