A lawyer has reported the illegal detention of Ukrainians on the Russian-Georgian border.

At least 19 Ukrainian citizens have been locked in a basement at the Georgian checkpoint "Dariali" for about a year without access to medical care and basic necessities, said lawyer Daria Samodurova.

As "Caucasian Knot" reported, the prolonged detention of Ukrainian citizens deported from the Russian Federation at the border with Georgia was known as far back as 2025. In early August, five Ukrainian citizens went on a hunger strike at the Georgian checkpoint, demanding access to the Ukrainian consul, the opportunity to leave Georgia, or apply for international protection. After meeting with the Ukrainian consul, they ended their hunger strike. At the end of August, it became known that more than 60 Ukrainians were able to return to their homeland after a prolonged forced stay at the checkpoint .

Ukrainians held in the basement of the Dariali customs checkpoint have asked for help, said Tbilisi-based lawyer Daria Samodurova. According to the lawyer, 19 Ukrainians, who have been illegally detained at the checkpoint for about a year, have personally contacted her.

“The conditions these people are being held in are alarming. A damp basement with no windows or ventilation, no bathroom or storage room. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is not providing them with food or medicine, no medical care, and no hygiene products. The basement is unsanitary,” Samodurova wrote on her Facebook page* on June 10.

The Ukrainian citizens who found themselves at the border were removed from Ukrainian territory by Russian security forces to Russia and then deported to Georgia, she explained. “At the Georgian border, during passport control, Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs officers placed these people in a basement without explanation,” the lawyer’s post reads.

The people locked in the basement at the checkpoint were not given any documents justifying the restriction of their freedom of movement: neither a decision denying entry to Georgia nor a court order. They were also not given any date for when their stay in the basement would end.

Samodurova notes that Ukrainians expelled from Russia began being placed in basements at checkpoints three years ago. "All agencies, including the Office of the Public Defender, were informed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the illegal placement of people in inhumane conditions," she emphasized, stating that such a violation of basic human rights "has become the norm" in Georgia.

"Caucasian Knot" also reported that in December 2023, a group of Ukrainian citizens, mostly former prisoners, waited a long time for permission to enter Georgia from Russia. Some of them spent about a month at the checkpoint. According to them, only volunteers provided assistance.

In October 2023, seven Ukrainian citizens were forced to spend more than two weeks in the buffer zone on the Russian-Georgian border. They had previously served sentences in Kherson penal colonies; after their release, they were taken to a deportation center in Volgograd and issued orders banning them from entering Russia. While Georgian authorities refused to allow them into the country, volunteers supplied the Ukrainians with food and essential items.

At the end of November of that year, it became known that Georgian authorities had again refused to allow former Ukrainian prisoners into the country. Volunteers managed to secure passage for eight Ukrainians, but another eight people, who by that time had already spent more than two weeks at the checkpoint, remained waiting at the border.