“I’m afraid that he will stay there”: the Russians took a former Ukrainian soldier to Moscow for trial

The Russians captured the ex-autonomist Serhiy Kovalsky near the house where he lived, tortured him with electric current and took him to a pre-trial detention center in the temporarily occupied Crimea, and later to Moscow. The occupiers accuse the man of “international terrorism” and want to send him to a Russian prison for 20 years.

Journalists spoke with the mother and common-law wife of ex-military Serhiy Kovalskyi, who are campaigning for his return home.

“They hide the wounded and send them to the controlled territory”

 Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the Seria family has not lived at home. It was too dangerous. Even in the first days of the occupation of Kherson, the Russians received lists with addresses and contact numbers of former soldiers and those who are currently defending Ukraine.

A military man by profession and a participant in the anti-terrorist operation in 2015-2016, Serhiy Kovalskyi understood that he too could be taken away. However, the man had been engaged in farming in recent years and was not involved in military affairs, so he hoped that he would be lucky.

According to Iryna Kovalska’s mother, during the occupation of Kherson, her son helped wounded Ukrainian defenders to escape to the territory controlled by Ukraine.

“When the war started and our soldiers were defeated on the left bank, there were a lot of boys, our soldiers, who got stuck in the reeds. Serhii, I don’t even know where he got that boat, took them away. They brought 15 people, and we hid them: clothed them, fed them and sent them to the controlled territory,” the woman recalls.

The man himself flatly refused to leave the occupied city, and the whole family stayed with him.

“We stayed here with him, we are his family, we supported him as much as we could, helped him. It was very scary, but we prayed, hoped and believed. He was taken on August 3. And hell began,” says Iryna.

Oleksandr Shatalov’s wife did not see Serhiy’s detention. The woman just went to her parents’ apartment, but a few hours later the Russians brought Kovalsky there.

“I immediately understood everything. He could not get there himself, because he would not go through the roadblocks on the bridge. He stands and says: “Give me the phone with the Russian number.” I say: “Come in,” and he shakes his head and points behind his back,” Oleksandra says.

Sergey took the phone and left. Through the window, the woman saw that he was being escorted by five armed men and being taken to a white SUV with tinted windows.

“A entire letter is on a small script”

In a few days, FSB representatives brought Kovalsky home for the first time to collect some documents. Each time they did it as a group, four entering the house, with at least two always left to watch from the street.

 “They work hard on psychology: they put pressure on pity, rub on trust. They tried to show how good they are. They always spoke to me calmly, assured me that everything would be fine, that this was all a formality and that he would be released. But I’m not from another planet,” Oleksandra says.

During one of these visits, Serhiy managed to deliver a note to his relatives. He left a folded piece of paper, only a few centimeters in size, in the toothbrush cup in the bathroom.

“You understand that he is giving us some information, you read every word very carefully. Because you understand that he can’t write 10 such letters, but this piece of paper contains everything he thinks we need to do, who to find,” Oleksandra says, holding her youngest daughter Elya in her arms.

The woman admits that she worried the most about her children, Elya and Eva. And it was they who did not let her down after Serhiy’s detention.

“We were able to eat for the first time only a week after he was taken. I could do nothing but sit by the window. I expected that he could be brought in at any minute. She couldn’t even go far from the house,” says the woman.

In the notes, Serhii apologized for not being with his family and unable to protect them. He told about the conditions of detention, constant torture, and was also able to give the names of the boys sitting in the cell with him and the telephone numbers of their wives.

They were kept in a basement on Luteranska Street in Kherson, says his wife and reads a fragment of one of Serhiy’s notes: “It’s hard to hear explosions in the basement, but you can hear them. How could I not eat all day before? Here we are fed only if they remember – half a disposable plate of pasta or half a can of stew. They are not allowed to go to the toilet for 3-4 days at a time.”

According to Oleksandra, the Russians are holding Serhiy in the basement together with nine other men whom the occupiers have united in one case. The woman assures that she does not know any of these prisoners.

“There was a complete bruise from neck to waist”

Oleksandra recalls that once FSB officers brought Serhiy Kovalsky home to collect some documents and allowed him to take a shower and change clothes. Sasha, despite the prohibition of the Russians, went into the bathroom and saw the beaten body of the man.

“Just so you understand: it was one continuous bruise – from the neck to the waist. It was a blue man. He only said “current” – and I understood everything,” says the woman.

The husband also writes to his mother about constant torture. In his notes, Serhiy says that even women and children sat with him in such conditions.

“The child was taken out for questioning today. I heard the boy’s age – 14 years. Apparently, he was taken for photographing the equipment. His heart bleeds from the fact that he sits in such conditions and sees all this,” Serhiy writes.

According to the mother, two months after the abduction, on October 6, the son was taken to the pre-trial detention center of the temporarily occupied Crimea.

“Simferopol is the scariest place. These two months that he spent here (in Kherson, — ed.) are, of course, like hell, but Crimea is the most terrible. There are inhumane conditions: they were beaten, tortured, abused. He stayed there for about four days, as far as I understand, but those were the most terrible days,” says Iryna Kovalska.

“I’m afraid that he will stay there”

Serhiy is now in Russia. He is being held in the “Lefortovo” detention center in Moscow. The Russians accuse him of “international terrorism” — this is Article 361 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which provides for 10 to 20 years in prison. The man was banned from seeing, sending and even letters, says the mother.

“We have a lawyer, but he has to be paid, but there is no help. I, Sasha and three children remained. We have already given everything we could. Everyone doesn’t care. I can’t get anywhere: “Sorry, overload. Please try later,” says Iryna.

One of these days, the lawyer should try to visit Serhii again, says the mother, but she and Sasha are afraid that they will not be able to get the man out of there, because he is listed as a civilian in the lists.

“The exchanges seem to continue, I understand that they are trying to extract ours, but this process is very slow and it scares me. I am afraid that the civilians will remain there,” Oleksandra says.

By New Year’s holidays, it will be five months since Serhiy is not at home, Oleksandra says. In more than three years of relationship, this is their first long separation.

The woman is holding a small piece of paper rolled into a tube. This is the last note she wrote for Serhiy, which Sasha never had time to give. She decided that she would keep it until her husband returned home to free Kherson.

In Ukraine, since the beginning of the full-scale war with the Russian Federation, 352 children are considered missing.

This was reported by the press service of the Office of the Ombudsman of Ukraine.

“Information according to the state child search portal “Children of War”, as of December 29, 2022: 450 – killed, 871 – wounded, 352 – missing, 8573 – found,” the message specifies.

On December 27, the Office of the Ombudsman announced that 8,537 children are considered to have been found in Ukraine.

As of the morning of December 29, 2022, the official number of child victims per day has not changed – 450. The number of wounded has increased – 871.

This is reported by the General Prosecutor’s Office.

These numbers are not final, as work is ongoing to establish them in places of active hostilities, in temporarily occupied and liberated territories.

“The most affected children were in Donetsk oblast – 428, Kharkiv oblast – 268, Kyiv oblast – 117, Mykolaiv oblast – 81, Zaporizhia oblast – 80, Kherson oblast – 77, Chernihiv oblast – 68, Luhansk oblast – 65, Dnipropetrovsk oblast – 40,” the report says.

So, on December 28, as a result of enemy shelling of the village of Two children aged 10 and 14 were injured in Kizomys, Kherson region.

December 28 in the village Bugaivka, Kharkiv region, a 7-year-old boy was blown up by a landmine left by Russian servicemen, as a result of which he received a traumatic amputation of a limb.

In addition, it is reported that 3,126 educational institutions were damaged due to bombing and shelling by the armed forces of the Russian Federation. 337 of them were completely destroyed.

During the occupation of Beryslav Oblast, a local resident died in the village of Lʹvove. This is reported by the police of the Kherson region. During the stabilization measures, it was established that the man was abducted by the Russian military in May. They kept him in Nova Kakhovka, where they tortured him.

Later, the man was taken to the hospital, but he did not survive. The case is being investigated by the police.

The Russian occupiers forcefully give Russian citizenship to children from Ukraine and illegally deported more than 13 thousand Ukrainian children during the full-scale war against Ukraine.

Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov wrote: “The 4th Geneva Convention calls for facilitating the renewal of contacts and meetings of family members. But the goal of the “Russian world” is different – to kill millions of Ukrainians and make their children Russians.

It should be noted that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine stated that Russia’s forced issuance of passports to residents of the occupied territories of Ukraine is yet another proof of genocide. In this way, the Russian Federation violates basic human rights.

Russian invaders are committing war crimes in Ukraine, now law enforcement officers are finding out the details and finding those who committed the crimes. Thus, the Ukrainian law enforcement officers managed to locate the war criminals Shultumov and Aganayev from the Russian Federation, who abused the civilians of the village of Buzova in the Kyiv region. The prosecutor’s office of the Kyiv region said that the occupiers beat people with butts and feet, threatened to shoot them, and robbed them. Among the victims of the looters’ actions were children, the youngest of whom was only four years old.