Some of the Ukrainian citizens kidnapped in Crimea were released after being subjected to threats, robbery, beating and torture. This happened, for example, on 03/04/2014 to Gennady Balashov, the Ukrainian politician and businessman, who was captured at the exit from the police station in Simferopol, or to Levko Stek, the journalist of Radio Liberty, who was kidnapped on 03/18/2014 from a public bus near Bakhchysaray and a few hours later was thrown out in a field.

Some of the kidnapped people were held in captivity for several days. This is what happened on 03/09/2014 to activists of Automaidan Kateryna Butko and Oleksandra Ryazantseva, as well as to the journalist Olena Maksymenko, photojournalist Oles Kromplyas, and the driver Yevhen Rakhno, who were seized at the illegal checkpoint Perekop. During illegal detention, citizens were beaten and robbed, and the journalists’ Jeep Wrangler vehicle was damaged. A group of journalists was being held inside the SBU office in Sevastopol, and the activists of Automaidan were interrogated at the Russian Black Sea Fleet base in the same city. On 03/11/2014 they were set free. 

On 03/15/2014, the occupation authorities in Crimea grabbed the activists of the Student Assembly Marta Pohorila and Alik Sardaryan, who were going to record the violations during the illegitimate referendum. Ex-Berkut men beat them up, the activists were abused and Marta was sexually harassed. After the end of the so-called "referendum" they were released.

Some of those who demonstrated a clear civic stance were forced to leave their homes and flee Crimea under pressure and threats from the occupiers and their accomplices. On 03/10/2014 in Balaklava, a group of people wearing the "Russian Bloc" armbands (probably the so-called "battalion Russian Bloc") burst into the apartment of a 63-year-old Euromaidan activist and scholar Ihor Kiryushchenko, who took part in the occupation resistance rally on 03/09/2014 in Sevastopol, and made him flee the peninsula. On 09/15/2014 in Sevastopol, "self-defense" militia kidnapped Mykola Kvich, the priest of the Dormition of the Theotokos parish of Sevastopol, chief military chaplain of the Crimean Exarchate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, right at the time of the service. He was subjected to physical violence, while the occupation authorities threatened to instigate his prosecution. After his release, the priest had to leave Crimea.

The fate of some Ukrainian patriots was especially tragic. On 03/07/2014 in Simferopol, Euromaidan activists, residents of Rivne, Valery Vashchuk and Ivan Bondarets, who came to Crimea from Kyiv to support the resistance to the occupation, vanished without a trace. On 03/15/2014 in Sevastopol, people in police uniform took the pro-Ukrainian activist, ex-SBU officer Vasyl Chernysh out of his apartment; the man is still missing. On 03/17/2014, Valid Abu Yusuf (aka Sergei Selentsov – an ethnic Russian who converted to Islam) went missing in Crimea.

On 03/09/2014 in Sevastopol, militants of the illegal paramilitary "Russian Bloc battalion" seized the participants of the Revolution of Dignity who had been earlier noticed at the rallies of resistance to the occupation in the Taras Shevchenko park. Participants of the rally were attacked and some of them ended up in hospital. Under the assault, Mykola Shyptur shot several rounds blindly in an attempt to break away from the pro-Russian militants. Vladyslav Polishchuk and Serhiy Tkachuk were beaten but released a few days later. Olga Chernyatynska was also set free.

In March 2014, many actively patriotic Ukrainian citizens were kidnapped, arrested, tortured and interrogated. Their life and health were under material threat. On the morning of 03/09/2014 militants of the so-called "Crimean self-defense" seized the co-coordinator of the Euromaidan-Crimea movement Andriy Shchekun and an activist of the Euromaidan-Crimea movement, ex-head of the Republican Forestry Committee of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Anatoly Kovalsky at the Simferopol railway station. They were held at the transport police precinct at the railway station, then moved to the basement of the central military commissariat in Simferopol that had been converted into a prison. They were kept blindfolded all the time, they were stripped naked and beaten at the first interrogation. In addition, Shchekun was tortured with electricity, the tormentors also used non-lethal weapons to shoot at his legs and arms (the surgeon later retrieved two bullets from his arm). The hostages testified that they were interrogated by Crimean collaborators and the Russian special forces operatives.

On 03/11/2014 in the center of Simferopol, persons with truncheons, who introduced themselves as "guys from Rostov", searched Mykhailo Vdovchenko, found a Ukrainian flag and took him to the office of the Russian Unity party. The Euromaidan activist was beaten and interrogated there, and later sent to the same basement of the military commissariat, where he was subjected to torture, psychological pressure and interrogations for several days.

On 03/14/2014  Automaidan activists Oleksiy Hrytsenko, Natalya Lukyanenko and Serhiy Suprun were delivering humanitarian aid to the blocked Ukrainian military bases in Crimea, their car was chased by several cars, fired at with automatic weapons and then seized. The Ukrainians were beaten and thrown into the basement prison where the men were tortured. The day after, Oleksiy Hrytsenko was taken to Sevastopol for several days of interrogation. Serhiy Suprun was held in Simferopol for more tortures. Yaroslav Pilunsky and Yuri Gruzinov, cameramen of the Babylon’13 group, were also kidnapped on 03/16/2014.

In mid-March 2014, more Ukrainian civilians were captured. In the same basement of the ARC military commissariat, activist Maksym Kryvydenko and Yuri Shevchenko, resident of Pavlohrad who were detained in Simferopol by accident, were tortured. Shevchenko got shot into both legs (later the surgeon removed a 9-mm rubber bullet from the right popliteal plane), and part of his ear was cut off.

On 03/12/2014, the operational group of the SBU Counterintelligence Department captured four Russian spies in Kherson Oblast who were acting under legal cover, driving a van in the area of deployment of the Ukrainian units. Holding valid passports with Crimean registration, the spies entered the territory of Kherson Oblast bypassing the border checkpoints and installing infrared guidance beacons near the Ukrainian military facilities. The beacons could provide accurate guidance for the Russian aircraft to target and hit the Ukrainian air defense systems. Electronic equipment and beacons were found on the detained individuals.

The leader of the spy group held a passport issued to the name of Arbuzov, a native and resident of Dzhankoy. However, the head of the SBU operational group, a resident of Crimea, detected inconsistencies in his statements. In Kherson, the spy confessed that his true name was Roman Filatov and he was an officer of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Federation. This became the proof of Russia's direct participation in the aggression against Ukraine, which the military command and political leadership of the Russian Federation was trying to deny. It was also established that Filatov had worked undercover on the territory of Ukraine for four years, which is another evidence of Russia’s gross violation of the Ukrainian-Russian agreements prohibiting the conduct of intelligence operations against a partner.

Kidnapping, torture and murder of pro-Ukrainian activists in the temporarily occupied Crimea and certain areas of Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast, illegal convictions of Crimeans and residents of other regions of Ukraine by the illegitimate Crimean or Russian courts continue to this day.

On 04/07/2021, the Human Rights Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine reported that Russia was illegally persecuting 133 Ukrainian citizens for political reasons, 114 of whom were arrested: 97 are now held in the Russian Federation, 17 – in Crimea. Moreover, 78 of these Ukrainian citizens are Crimean Tatars. In the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea and the Donbas, Russia and its proxy forces are holding 376 captives. Human rights activists reported 45 missing persons in Crimea in the period from 2014 to 2020, the fate of 15 of them is still unknown. Experts believe most of them have been killed.

From 2014 to 2020, there were three waves of release. Most of the hostages (2,957) were released during the first wave from March 2014 to December 2015, thanks to the firm pressure exerted on Russia by the international coalition, the Minsk agreements, as well as to the Ukrainian military capturing a significant number of Russian citizens who fought in the east of Ukraine. From 2016 to November 2017, there were isolated hostage releases. According to the SBU, in 2016, for example, the Ukrainian side got back 16 of its citizens.

A large-scale exchange happened on 12/27/2017. Previously, the Ukrainian authorities agreed to hand 306 detainees over to the militants, and the Russian-controlled militant groups otherwise known as the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) returned 74 persons. However, only 233 people actually moved to the occupied part of Ukraine, whereas the remaining 73 chose to stay. 73 persons returned to the territory controlled by Ukraine (one was not released by the militants). In 2019 and 2020, over 130 persons returned to the free territory of Ukraine.