Kyiv detention center admits: detainees have nowhere to shelter from strikes

The administration of the Kyiv remand prison has officially confirmed that the facility has no protective structures against strikes, and that during air raid alerts inmates remain in their cells.

This was reported by former Deputy Minister of Justice Denis Chernyshov in an article for Yurydychna Hazeta (Legal Newspaper).

According to Chernyshov, the detention center’s administration provided this information in response to his official inquiry. The only measure in place when an air raid alert is declared is a recommendation broadcast over loudspeakers installed in the cells, advising inmates to move away from the windows.

Chernyshov cites an inspection carried out in 2024 by Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets. At the time, it was recorded that inmates and staff of the facility “are exposed to a daily real risk to their life and health, remaining unprotected during air attacks.” Last summer, ombudsman Lubinets described the absence of shelters in penitentiary institutions on Kyiv-controlled territory as “a direct violation of the state’s positive obligations to protect the right to life.”

In his article, Chernyshov invokes Article 3 of the Constitution of Ukraine: by taking a person into custody and thereby depriving them of the ability to protect themselves, the state assumes responsibility for their life and health.

In addition to the security issue, the former deputy minister raises the question of the use of pre-trial detention as a restraining measure. According to him, under Ukraine’s Code of Criminal Procedure, pre-trial detention is an exceptional restraining measure. Part 3 of Article 183 of the CCP, as Chernyshov notes, “directly obliges the investigator, judge, or court, when imposing pre-trial detention, to set the amount of bail.” He emphasizes: “This is not a privilege or a gesture of goodwill: bail upon arrest is the rule.” The law also provides that the bail amount must be affordable to pay.

Chernyshov also draws attention to the fact that the law stipulates exceptions under which a judge “has the right” not to set bail, but corruption offenses are not included in that list.

It was previously reported that former Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Mudra was released from the remand prison, where she had spent one and a half months due to difficulties in posting bail.