Alina Kapatsyna often dreams about getting a phone call from her mother. In those visions, her mother tells her that she's coming home.
Men in military uniforms took 45-year-old Vita Hannych away from her house in eastern Ukraine in April. She never returned.
Her family later learned that Hannych, who has long suffered from seizures because of a brain cyst, is in custody in the Russian-occupied part of the Donetsk region.
Kapatsyna told The Associated Press that it remains unclear why her mother — ”a peaceful, civilian and sick person” who has never held a weapon — was detained.
Hannych is one of many Ukrainian noncombatants being held by Russian forces for months following their invasion.
Some are deemed to be prisoners of war, even though they never took part in the fighting. Others are in a sort of legal limbo — not facing any criminal charges or considered to be POWs. Ukrainian estimates of how many there are range from hundreds to many thousands.
Hannych was wearing only a sweatsuit and slippers when she was seized by Russian forces occupying her village of Volodymyrivka several weeks into the February 24 invasion. It is still under Moscow's control.
Her family initially thought she would come home shortly. Russian forces were known to detain people for two or three days for “filtration” and then release them, Kapatsyna said, and Hannych had no military or law enforcement connections.
When she wasn't released, Kapatsyna and her 64-year-old grandmother started a search. At first, letters and visits to various Russian-installed officials and government bodies in the Donetsk region yielded no results.
“The answers from everywhere were the same: We did not take her away. Who took her then, if no one took her?” said Kapatsyna, who left the village in March for the Ukrainian-controlled city of Dnipro.
Then, they finally got some clarity: Hannych was jailed in Olenivka, another Russian-controlled city, according to a letter from the Moscow-installed prosecutor's office in the Donetsk region.
The jail staff told Kapatsyna's grandmother that Hannych was a sniper, allegations her family deems absurd, given her condition. Medical records seen by the AP confirmed that she had a brain cyst, as well as “residual encephalopathy” and “general convulsive attacks”.
Anna Vorosheva, who spent 100 days in the same facility as Hannych, recounted squalid, inhumane conditions: putrid drinking water, no heat or showers, having to sleep in shifts and hearing new prisoners screaming from being beaten.
Vorosheva, 46, said she wasn't told why she was detained, aside from “smirks and jokes about Nazis” — a reference to Russia's false claims that what it calls its “special military operation” was a campaign to “denazify” Ukraine. She also said the staff told her: “Be happy we're not beating you.”
Donetsk authorities labelled Hannych a POW and recently told the family she is imprisoned in the occupied city of Mariupol. It remains unclear when, if at all, she could be released.
Ukraine's top human rights organisation, Centre for Civil Liberties, has requests concerning around 900 civilians captured by Russia since the war began, with more than half still in custody.