On 19 March 2022, Mariano García Calatayud took part in a rally in support of Ukraine in occupied Kherson. As he was returning home, two men in balaclavas pushed him into a minibus and drove him away in an unknown direction. Mariano's friends, lawyer, and Spanish diplomats immediately appealed to the Russian authorities demanding clarification of the reasons for his arrest.

For some time, García Calatayud, along with dozens of other Kherson residents, was held in a detention facility set up at the site of a former sobering-up center in Kherson. Yevhen Babiichuk, who had been detained by Russian security forces in occupied territory and met Calatayud in the facility, told journalists about this. At the end of March 2022, Babiichuk and García Calatayud, along with several other detainees were transported with bags over their heads to the FSB Department in Simferopol. Upon arrival at the FSB, the detainees were beaten and then taken to Simferopol Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 1, where FSIN and FSB officers constantly beat and tortured them, including with electric shocks. Kherson blogger and activist Oleksandr Tarasov, who was held in Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 1 from March 2022 to February 2023, also spoke about the torture of García Calatayud. Babiichuk and Tarasov noted that García Calatayud was constantly beaten because he did not understand the orders of the guards in Russian. "It was very difficult for Mario [nickname]: he doesn't know the language, he is elderly, he constantly feels unwell. He kept asking for a doctor, but he was mostly ignored. If he was given medicine, it was only corvalol. Mario didn't understand the guards' orders, and for that he was constantly beaten with a stun gun. In the cell, you couldn't lie down between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., and Mario sometimes couldn't take it and lay down before lights out. They would beat him for that too," said Oleksandr Tarasov. In April 2023, the Russian military prosecutor's office responded to an official inquiry that Mariano García Calatayud was being held in Simferopol, in Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 2, in connection with "establishing his involvement in actions damaging the security of the Russian Federation." The lawyer regularly sent parcels in García Calatayud's name to the detention centre, and they were delivered – the FSIN system sent corresponding notifications. Witnesses who communicated with Mariano after his arrest reported that he was subjected to torture; without proper medical care, his chronic illnesses worsened, in particular heart disease, and he suffered a heart attack. He was then allegedly transferred to a prison in Chongar. His partner Tatyana Marina received a response from the Black Sea Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation: "On 1 June 2023, Spanish citizen Mariano García Calatayud crossed the international vehicle checkpoint at Dzhankoy in the direction of Kherson region." García Calatayud's defense attorney, Anatoly Fursov, also received a letter from the Russian Military Prosecutor's Office of the Black Sea Fleet, dated 4 December 2023, stating that Mariano García Calatayud "left the territory of the Republic of Crimea and went to Kherson region on 1 June 2023," and also that "the prosecutor's office does not currently have information about his whereabouts." In early 2025, the lawyer received an official notification that "all documents in the case of Spanish citizen Mariano García Calatayud are with the competent authorities of the Donetsk People's Republic" (the self-proclaimed "DPR"). As of today, there is no contact with Mariano García Calatayud.

No charges filed

Mariano García Calatayud is a Spanish volunteer and the common-law husband of Ukrainian Tatyana Marina. Born in Spain. In 2014, after the outbreak of hostilities in Donbas, he took early retirement and moved to Ukraine, to Kherson. He engaged in volunteer work: delivering clothes to people in need in the conflict zone, and bringing hospitals blood transfusion systems, tourniquets, syringes, and diapers. Pro-Russian sources claimed that Mariano supported Ukrainian fighters and brought aid to the Anti-Terrorist Operation zone, supported the "Right Sector," and after the start of the Russian invasion, joined the Kherson territorial defence. Tatyana Marina denies that García Calatayud ever participated in combat operations. In March 2022, when Kherson was already under Russian occupation, Mariano García Calatayud and Tatyana attended anti-occupation rallies almost daily. García Calatayud expressed his thoughts on the Russian invasion in the Spanish press, in particular in the newspaper Español.

Not delivered

The detention of Mariano García Calatayud violates the provisions of the Geneva Convention IV of 12 August 1949 "Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War," signed by the Russian Federation. The rights to physical inviolability, humane treatment, and a fair and proper trial have been violated. Amnesty International also demands his immediate release and indicates that this constitutes a violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute.