INSU statement
The International Solidarity Network with Ukraine is calling on its affiliate organisation and all supporters of Ukraine's national and social rights to take action on or around November 1 to protest the case of Denys Matsola, held in appalling conditions in Russian captivity for more than four years.
Matsola's case exemplifies the sadistic treatment being handed out to Ukrainian prisoners of war by the Russian authorities.
Who is Denys Matsola?
Matsola is a former student union organiser, journalist and human rights activist who served as a volunteer in Ukraine's 501st Independent Marine Infantry Battalion. He was captured on April 4, 2022, when the battalion was surrounded by invading Russian forces during the defence of the coastal city of Mariupol.
However, Denys Matsola did not enter political life as a soldier. He grew up in Simferopol, Crimea, and became politically active while studying at Taurida University, where he was a member of the independent left-wing student union Direct Action (Priama Diia). He took part in environmental campaigns and struggles against illegal construction and supported the Crimean Tatar movement.
When Russian forces occupied Crimea in 2014, Matsola opposed the annexation and helped Ukrainian military personnel trapped in their bases during the Russian takeover. Like thousands of other Crimeans opposed to the occupation, he was forced to leave his home without leaving Ukraine (he moved to Kyiv).
There Matsola joined East SOS, an organisation set up in response to the war in the Donbas and the growing number of displaced people from eastern Ukraine. As a journalist, he travelled to the region and documented the effects of the conflict and helped displaced people. He next moved to Lviv, where he worked with Right to Protection and contributed to Krym Realii, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s service dedicated to Crimea, reporting on conditions on the peninsula under Russian occupation.
As Russia massed forces around Ukraine throughout 2021 and the possibility of another invasion became increasingly difficult to deny, Matsola volunteered for the 501st Independent Marine Battalion of the 36th Marine Brigade, which was deployed in the vicinity of Mariupol when Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.
The ensuing Russian siege devastated Mariupol following weeks of shelling. Among the attacks identified as war crimes by international agencies were the March 9 shelling of the maternity and children’s hospital and the March 16 air strike on the Drama Theatre, where hundreds of civilians had sought refuge and where an Associated Press investigation estimated that around 600 people may have been killed.
As the city was destroyed around them (at the cost of up to 20,000 lives), the defending Ukrainian forces found themselves progressively trapped. Soldiers from the 501st Battalion were captured in early April, and Matsola was among those captured on April 4.
Denys Matsola is representative of the tens of thousands of Ukrainians who joined the Ukrainian resistance after February 2022. Contrary to the myths that reduce this resistance to a pro-NATO or Western imperialist project or even echo Putin’s slander about neo-Nazis, those who volunteered for the front came from a wide variety of political and social backgrounds, including thousands usually viewed as left wing—trade unionists, journalists, socialists, anarchists, feminists, environmentalists and human rights activists.
The treatment of Matsola and other Ukrainian prisoners of war
For approximately three years after that, Matsola's family, friends and former colleagues refrained from launching a public campaign, fearing that publicity might complicate a potential exchange or expose him to reprisals while in Russian custody. They only changed course when information provided by released prisoners revealed how alarming his situation was.
In April 2025, East SOS reported that former prisoners had located Matsola at Detention Centre (CIZO) No. 2 in Kineshma, in the Ivanovo region of Russia. According to their testimony, he had been held in continuous solitary confinement since April 2023 and, for approximately three months in 2024, the prison authorities had drastically restricted his food intake. East SOS warned that prolonged solitary confinement and starvation were seriously endangering his physical and psychological health.
Although the information regarding Matsola’s individual treatment comes from former prisoners who knew him during his captivity, it forms part of a much broader pattern that has been independently documented by the media and human rights organisations. A 2025 Associated Press investigation found evidence that torture, starvation, untreated illnesses and the denial of medical care contributed to the deaths of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian custody; more than 200 were known to have died at the time of the investigation.
In June 2026, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission reported that almost all of the recently released Ukrainian prisoners of war it interviewed described torture or ill-treatment, including severe beatings, electric shocks and the denial of adequate medical care, confirming a pattern documented six months earlier by Human Rights Watch, which found systematic torture including beatings, stress positions, sleep deprivation, electric shocks, mock executions, attacks by dogs, and inadequate food and medical treatment.
These findings have also been corroborated by released prisoners from Matsola’s own 36th Marine Infantry Brigade, whose accounts describe the serious physical and psychological consequences of years of captivity in Russia. Consequently, the solitary confinement and deprivation of food that Matsola is reportedly subjected to form part of a much broader and well-documented pattern of abuses against Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Consequently, INSU not only supports the demand for Matsola’s inclusion in a future prisoner exchange. While he remains in detention, the Russian authorities are obliged, under international humanitarian law, to treat him humanely, provide him with adequate food and medical care, allow him contact with his family, and authorise independent monitoring of his conditions.
What can I do?
- Take action on November 1 to publicise the case of Denys Matsola and Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian captivity
- Have you trade union, social association or religious organisation adopt resolutions demanding the release of Denys Matsola and the humane treatment of all Ukrainian prisoners, sending them to Russian embassies and authorities
- Publicise these resolutions through trade union publications, meetings, social media and the press.
- Write to the Ukrainian authorities responsible for prisoner exchanges, urging that Denys Matsola's release remain a priority
Authorised by: Szymon Martys, coordinator, International Network for Solidarity with Ukraine