Key facts
- The Kherson Oblast Prosecutor's Office said the accused is a 33-year-old commander of a reconnaissance platoon from Russia's 247th Air Assault Regiment.
- Prosecutors said one victim was beaten and given electric shocks during daily interrogations about local volunteers.
- Prosecutors said the commander wrapped an electric cable around that man's neck and strangled him until he lost consciousness.
- Prosecutors said the second man suffered fractures of 11 ribs, his sternum and his jaw, and lost a finger to gangrene.
- The commander was charged with cruel treatment of civilians and other violations of the laws and customs of war, per prosecutors.
- The Prosecutor General's Office said on November 11 that more than 55,000 criminal offenses had been registered in Kherson Oblast since November 11, 2022.
Ukraine's Security Service has finished its pre-trial investigation into a Russian commander accused of torturing two civilians in occupied Oleshky and sent the indictment to court, the Kherson Oblast Prosecutor's Office said on November 12, 2026.
Prosecutors said the accused is a 33-year-old commander of a reconnaissance platoon from Russia's 247th Air Assault Regiment. They said that after Russia destroyed the Kakhovka Dam in June 2023, he and other Russian servicemen patrolled the flooded area of Oleshky, a front-line city in Kherson Oblast, and detained two unarmed local residents in June that year.
The two civilians were taken to a ninth-floor apartment and held for ten days in conditions prosecutors described as dire, with insufficient food, water and basic sanitation. One was interrogated daily, beaten and tortured with electric shocks from wires attached to his fingers, prosecutors said, while the commander demanded details about local volunteers. A damp cloth was placed under his feet to intensify the pain, and during one interrogation the commander wrapped an electric cable around his neck and strangled him until he lost consciousness, according to the prosecutor's office.
The second man, accused of mapping Russian firing positions, was tortured to extract information about alleged intelligence passed to the Ukrainian army, prosecutors said. He endured electric shocks and beatings that caused fractures of 11 ribs, his sternum and his jaw, and inadequate medical care led to infection, gangrene and the amputation of a finger, they said.