A/HRC/40/59/Add.3 97. However, the Special Rapporteur was able to interview individuals who had been detained by armed groups for reasons related to the armed conflict and who had been released to government-controlled territory as part of the simultaneous release on 27 December 2017 under the Minsk agreements. Those interviews provided some insight into the treatment of conflict-related detainees and the methods of torture used in the territories controlled by the de facto authorities in Donetsk and Luhansk. 98. Interviewees reported having been apprehended in the street or at home by armed men in civilian clothing and transferred to the Ministry of State Security of the respective de facto authorities, where they underwent interrogation for prolonged periods of time, sometimes exceeding one month, with no access to lawyers and no communication with their relatives. In the majority of cases, the detainees were kept either in the basements of the Ministry buildings or in premises generally not intended for detention, and were regularly brought to Ministry of State Security officers for interrogation. 99. Torture or ill-treatment reportedly took place during the interrogation period, involving beating and kicking, threats of sexual violence against them or their families, electrocution, mock executions and suffocation. The primary purpose of such abuse was to extract confessions or information about military targets. Detainees were often hooded or blindfolded and handcuffed and/or strapped to a chair, which made it impossible for them to identify the perpetrators. 100. Many of the interviewees reported that they had been charged with espionage, subversive activities or terrorism on the basis of self-incriminating statements extracted under torture. Persons regularly crossing the contact line appeared to be at higher risk of arbitrary arrest and torture. 101. According to those interviewees, the de facto authorities regularly (sometimes as often as every month) conducted violent searches using external special forces, during which inmates had to stand at attention facing the wall. Masked officials would then enter selected cells and spread a climate of fear through arbitrary and severe beatings of inmates, generally without any apparent cause. Former inmates also reported insufficient access to medical care, particularly regarding specialized treatment, and the quality of the food was generally assessed as being extremely poor and the quantity as insufficient. 102. The Special Rapporteur did not receive any information indicating that the de facto authorities of Luhansk and Donetsk had attempted to investigate acts of torture or to hold alleged perpetrators accountable. IV. Allegations of torture and ill-treatment in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea 103. With no physical access to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the Special Rapporteur obtained only limited information about acts of torture and other ill-treatment there. The lack of access to the territory and to persons deprived of their liberty there prevents any independent oversight, and makes it very difficult to comprehensively examine the situation relating to torture and ill-treatment. 104. The Special Rapporteur was able to meet with a number of individuals who had managed to escape from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, allegedly after having been subjected to severe acts of torture and ill-treatment at the hands of Russian law enforcement and intelligence officers. Opponents to the March 2014 referendum and other critics including journalists, bloggers, civil society activists and Crimean Tatars, notably the supporters of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, were found to be particularly exposed to various human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, unfair trials and torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. 105. The Special Rapporteur is concerned at consistent information he received according to which hundreds of prisoners and pretrial detainees have been transferred to the Russian Federation, with some incarcerated in high-security penal colonies in Siberia. 15