In spring 2014, military command office of the 'LPR’ was located in the building of a district council of Zhovtnevyi district in Luhansk.

The district administration was refurbished, some barracks were installed, the territory was fenced off, and they made piping and sewage independent because there was no water, put barrels, connected them together and brought 10-15 cubic meters of water each day...

Prisoners were detained in the basement of that building. Witnesses mentioned two premises - an airless room 4x4 meters and a closer under the stairs:

There was another room under the stairs, you know, like for technicians, closed with bars.  Some people were detained there. So this narrow and dark space under the stairs - there were people there as well.

Photo credit Novaya Gazeta

Former prisoners said that detention of prisoners was extremely disorganized. It was obvious that militants had nowhere to put prisoners, and they kept arriving ( 'When they brought [us] to Zhovtnevyi district executive committee they really did not know where to put us’). The cell described below was soon overcrowded. Women were held together with men. There were attempts to transfer women to separate premises, but due to lack of places they were again returned to the room with men.

While prisoners were often interrogated and tortured at the state administration or the SSU, nobody usually dealt with prisoners at this location. “They took people for ‘interrogation’ selectively’ and worked on them, but usually they simply put a person into the basement”.

There was no schedule or certain rules, and prisoners could go around their business in the cell. There was a mention of one attempt to introduce strict rules:

There was one man, one of the Russians, sometimes he went crazy and showed off as if he was an investigator and not a guard. One of the Russians. He tried to introduce some repressions, tried to discipline the cell and make people stand, ‘If I see someone sitting down...’. Then, they say, he was blown up, talked himself into trouble...

Conditions of detention

The abovementioned 4x4-meter cell, where interviewees were detained, was in the basement and had no windows. There was a lit lightbulb. The floor was concrete, the walls were concrete, in shambles. First, prisoners were sleeping directly on the concrete floor, and then they brought three bunk beds. There was a desk screwed to the wall to cover the sewage. However, there was still strong smell.​

Photo credit by Novaya Gazeta

It was a dusty, dirty and damp place. There was no ventilation, and the guards cut out a small hole, 5x10 cm, in the door to allow for some air in. However, it was necessary to open the door to air out the room. When several dozens of people were brought into this room, it was unbearably hot, humid and hard to breathe.

When they opened the door to our room upstairs, before entrance to the basement, you could feel the heat up there.

The number of prisoners varied from fifteen to forty people.

When it was 12 people, it was simply ‘heaven’. When it was 19 people, it was too crowded. When they put 27 people, we realized that [having] 19 people was fine. Then, they started adding and adding, and it was already 36 people, and we started getting scared and thinking how… Then, they added three more women to these 36 people - [there was ] a total of 39.

It was impossible to lie down in these conditions, so people were cramped half-sitting and half-lying on the beds and under the beds.

Prisoners were given noodles and porridge once a day. They were drinking from plastic bottles and filling up the bottles from a tap in the bathroom. According to descriptions, prisoners could ask the guards to take them out to the bathroom, or ‘used the bucket and plastic bottles, which were taken out later’ during the day.

Prisoners were not taken out for walks. Women were forced to work in the kitchen or clean the place, and men were taken to dig trenches and pour concrete.

Oleksandr Makarov, a former SSU official, was one of the prisoners of Zhovtnevyi district council. He was detained by a group of militants of militants led by Arkadiy Korniyevskyi, a subordinate of Makarov at the SSU. Makarov was first detained at the state administration, then - at the district council basement. A piece in Krasnodon newspaper said, 'Detained in a closet with construction waste and a hanging lock on the door, without a bathroom, with food provided once in two days”.