Some 600 Ukrainian activists, journalists and prisoners of war are being held in “torture chambers” in and around the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, according to an official.

“According to our information, in the Kherson region there are about 600 people who are in basements, in specially equipped rooms, in torture chambers,” Tamila Tasheva, Kyiv’s representative to Crimea, said at a media briefing on Tuesday, Ukrainian outlet Ukrinform reported.

Tasheva said roughly 300 of those being held were held in the city proper, with the other 300 held in nearby locations. Still, more Ukrainians are being held in detention centers in Russian-occupied Crimea, she said.

Those imprisoned include military POWs as well as journalists and other civilian hostages.

The claims could not be independently verified.

The first major city to be taken by Russia in the opening days of the invasion, Kherson has been a hotbed of civil resistance to Moscow’s occupation, with protests dispersed by live ammunition on at least one occasion.

The Kremlin-installed puppet government in Kherson announced last month that it would be requesting annexation by Moscow.

“The city of Kherson is Russia,” Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Kremlin’s occupation authority in the city, told Russian state-run media in May.