During the occupation of Kherson Region, the Russians subjected more than 500 people to torture

During the occupation of Kherson Region, the Russian military illegally detained 2,029 local residents. Of them, 1,670 people were detained in 2022 and 359 in 2023.

This was reported by the Kherson Regional Prosecutor’s Office.

The agency notes that since February 24, 2022, 524 residents of the Kherson region have been tortured: 429 people in 2022 and 95 people in 2023.

“Out of the indictments sent to the court on the facts of committing war crimes (Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), in 4 criminal proceedings, 18 persons were charged with organizing places of illegal detention and/or directly carrying out torture of the local population or causing them bodily harm, inhumane treatment, etc.”, – it is stated in the notification.

For example, 42-year-old Colonel Dmytro Laikov, an employee of the second service of the Department for the Protection of the Constitutional Order of the FSB of the Russian Federation, was charged with illegally imprisoning local residents, torturing them, and depriving them of medical care during the occupation of Novaya Kakhovka on the left bank of the Kherson Region.

Law enforcement officers also established the identities of 26 residents of Novaya Kakhovka, who voluntarily served in the occupation “police”, kidnapped and tortured local residents.

On November 21, 2023, the Russians illegally detained and imprisoned Ruslan Rusnak, a 28-year-old former participant in the anti-terrorist operation, in the temporarily occupied village of Gornostaivka in the Kherson region. It has now become known that the man died of torture in a captured police station.

The prosecutors of the Kherson regional prosecutor’s office sent an indictment to the court against three Russian Guardsmen, who are accused of cruel treatment of the civilian population and other violations of the laws and customs of war. Two of them are also charged with the intentional killing of a civilian.

It is also known that during the occupation of Kherson, the Russians set up four torture chambers there, one of them had a special cell where children were kept in terrible conditions and subjected to torture.

So far, the Ukrainian authorities have managed to identify 172 Russian servicemen and occupation officials who brutalized the civilian population and tortured civilians. 141 indictments were sent to the court, and 39 people received sentences.