Ukrainian law enforcement said it has caught and returned to prison 166 of 457 inmates who were freed by Russia’s military and Russian-installed authorities as they retreated in the southern Kherson region last week.
Among the inmates freed by Russia’s forces, 15 had been serving life sentences, Ukraine’s National Police Chief Igor Klimenko said on television Tuesday.
“The lists of prisoners released by the Russians from detention are now being clarified. The police have been updated with this information,” the Ukrainskaya Pravda news website quoted him as saying.
In the first weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s forces converted the pre-trial detention center in Kherson city into a headquarters for Russian National Guard troops.
Ukraine is gradually returning Kherson, the strategic capital of the Kherson region, to normalcy after Russian troops were forced to leave the city last week.
President Volodymyr Zelensky surprised locals with an unannounced visit Monday, just days after Ukraine recaptured the city.
Ukrainian investigators have documented more than 400 war crimes in the Kherson region under Russian forces’ occupation, Zelensky said last week.
Residents who spoke to The Washington Post accused Russian troops of using a former youth detention center as a site to torture locals.
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