In Melekino, near Russian-occupied Mariupol, Russian soldiers who refuse to fight (refusniks) have reportedly been held for months in a basement.
The independent Russian outlet Astra, citing sources, reports that a soldier from Buryatia – identified under the assumed name “Yegor Kharin” for safety – arrived in Melekino in June 2025 and was immediately taken to the basement of an abandoned construction site.
Melekino, a resort village on the Sea of Azov about 20 kilometers from Mariupol, has been under Russian control since 2022. Astra says the unfinished building is the 24th such detention site it has identified since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion.
“Darkness, gloom, no air, damp, cardboard boxes, pallets, bottles,” is how Kharin described the basement.
According to him, soldiers there said they had been held for eight months, sometimes a year.
“Those who left their unit without leave (AWOL), deserters, and non-deserters – they put all them there,” he said.
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