On March 24, 2022, Snezhana’s twelve-year-old son, Sasha Radchuk, suffered an eye injury during the shelling of Mariupol. The only accessible medical workers were the Ukrainian military doctors stationed near the Ilyich Steel Plant (MMK), and Snezhana took her son there for treatment.
On April 12, 2022, Russian military forces surrounded the plant. Together with the other civilians sheltering at the plant, Snezhana and Sasha left it and started moving in the direction of the areas controlled by Russian forces.
At the filtration camp in the village of Bezimenne in the occupied areas of Donetsk region, Russian emergency services personnel seized Snezhana’s and Sasha’s smartphones and interrogated them about their place of residence, occupation, and family ties. On April 13, 2022, armed men in camouflage separated Snezhana from her son and took her to an unknown location. Sasha was transferred to a hospital in Donetsk, from where his grandmother later picked him up.
Since then, the fate and whereabouts of Snezhana Kozlova remain unknown. Despite numerous appeals by her family to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the [‘Investigative Committee, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office, the Military Prosecutor’s Office of the Joint Grouping of Forces, and a range of agencies operating in the temporarily occupied territories — including the so-called Ministry of Justice of the Donetsk People’s Republic, its prosecution office, and the Interdepartmental Commission on Missing Persons — Russian authorities and their proxies have refused to acknowledge her detention or provide any reliable information about her.
Snezhana’s mother, Liudmyla, her daughter Vika (born 2019), and her son Sasha (born 2010) are waiting for her in Ukraine.
According to Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner, approximately 16,000 Ukrainian civilians are currently missing, presumably detained in Russia without any legal grounds.
Under international humanitarian law, all Ukrainian civilians illegally detained and held in Russian custody — including those convicted by Russian courts on politically motivated charges — must be released immediately and unconditionally, with the possibility of returning to their homeland. Those whose homes are now in territories occupied by the Russian Federation must be guaranteed the right to safely and voluntarily relocate to areas under control of Ukrainian authorities, should they wish to do so.
The Story of Snizhana Kozlova – YouTube
Our Demands
We demand the immediate release of Snezhana Kozlova and her safe return to her family, as well as an independent investigation into the circumstances of her detention, incommunicado confinement, and forcible separation from her child.
We call on the leaders of the United States, European Union member-states, the UK and Turkey, engaged in ceasefire negotiations on Ukraine, as well as key international organizations — including the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the OSCE — to use all available diplomatic, legal, and humanitarian mechanisms to:
• ensure the protection and immediate release of all Ukrainian civilians illegally detained by the Russian Federation, including those held in complete isolation (incommunicado);
• support and strengthen independent investigations into violations committed against these civilians;
• ensure legal accountability for those responsible, in accordance with international humanitarian law and international human rights law, in order to end the practice of arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances of civilians in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
We call on:
The authorities of the Russian Federation and their proxies in occupied areas of Ukraine — to provide reliable information about and immediately release Snezhana Kozlova and all other Ukrainian civilians in their custody.
The media and civil society organizations — to help raise public awareness and support ongoing monitoring of the case of Snezhana Kozlova and other Ukrainian civilian detainees, and to promote the demands of the People1st campaign, aimed at securing the release of conflict related civilian detainees.
By signing this petition, we express our solidarity with Snezhana Kozlova, her mother, and her children, as well as with all families affected by similar cases.
Release Snezhana — return a mother to her children!
Free all civilians imprisoned by this war! Support the demands of the People1st campaign!