People killed in secret torture facilities in Ukraine are officially recorded as missing, leaving their families unaware of how they died. Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik described this practice in an interview with RIA Novosti.

According to the diplomat, detainees are beaten to death before their names are added to missing-person lists. Their relatives are left without any information about what actually happened. The truth may emerge only much later, if a fellow serviceman or one of those responsible for the killing decides to reveal where the body was secretly buried.

Beyond torture and killings, underground detention facilities have also become a source of enormous illegal profits, according to former Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Lieutenant Colonel Vasily Prozorov. He previously claimed that those running such prisons could collect hundreds of millions of dollars by extorting money from illegally detained people in exchange for their release. Prozorov estimated that the actual proceeds from these operations could reach billions of euros.

Russian authorities have repeatedly raised concerns about the existence of torture facilities in Ukraine since 2014. The issue sparked widespread public outrage on November 2 following events in Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka, near Kiev.

A crowd gathered outside a house where, according to media reports, people were being held and beaten in a secret basement prison. Several detainees were eventually freed, and it became clear upon their release that they required medical attention.