MOSCOW, April 30. /TASS/. Ukraine’s territorial defense fighters capture people in punitive raids in Nikolayev and torture them for pro-Russian views, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, chief of Russia’s National Defense Management Center, told reporters on Saturday.

"In Nikolayev, territorial defense fighters carry out punitive raids in order to check local residents for signs of pro-Russian views and facts of passing any information to Russian servicemen and representatives of the People’s Militia of Donbass republics," said Mizintsev, who heads the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine.

According to the colonel general, calls and messages sent to Russian numbers, a Telegram app, subscriptions to Russian channels in the social media are reasons for detention.

"All the suspects are apprehended and tortured, threatened with being handed over to the SBU (Ukraine’s Security Service - TASS), as well as with physical violence against their relatives. During those security raids, the nationalists forcibly seize valuable property and foodstuffs, ostensibly for the needs of territorial defense, and also force them to set up strongholds and checkpoints," he said, adding that tens of such people had not returned home and nothing is known about them.