Kyiv Arrests Returned POW for Torturing Fellow Prisoners

Ukrainian law enforcement said it has arrested a returned prisoner of war (POW) for torturing fellow Ukrainian POWs while in captivity, resulting in at least one death.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a Thursday press release that the suspect is a senior rifleman at Ukraine’s National Guard, who was returned in a prisoner swap in March 2025.

Authorities said the man was captured in June 2022, four months after the 2022 invasion started, and was interned at a barrack in occupied Horlivka, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where he collaborated with Russian prison staff.

“According to the case materials, after being captured by the Rashists in June 2022, the serviceman collaborated with the enemy,” the press release says.

“For this, he was appointed the so-called ‘head of household’ of the 2nd floor of barrack No. 8 in ‘Kalininsk correctional colony No. 27’ in temporarily occupied Horlivka in the Donetsk region,” it adds.

The SBU said he treated other Ukrainian POWs “cruelly” by “regularly [exerting] psychological pressure on Ukrainians, [threatening] them with violence, and [forcing] them to perform heavy physical labor.”

“It was established that one captured Ukrainian soldier died as a result of his torture, and dozens of others received injuries of varying severity,” the press release says.

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The SBU said multiple witnesses at the POW camp accused the suspect of torture, with evidence later found on his smartphone corroborating their accounts during a subsequent search.

The man is named a suspect in the ongoing case and faces up to eight years in prison if convicted.