Kyiv, May 27 (AP) — “Everything will be all right.” This was the reassuring phrase Ukrainian soldier Serhii Hryhoriev frequently shared during his brief phone calls from the frontline. His wife and two daughters believed it so deeply that his younger daughter, Oksana, had the phrase tattooed on her wrist as a symbol of hope.
Even after Hryhoriev's capture by the Russian army in 2022, his family continued to hold onto the belief that he would be safe. International law required Russia to protect its prisoners of war. When Hryhoriev returned home, it was tragically in a body bag.
A Russian death certificate claimed the 59-year-old succumbed to a stroke. However, a Ukrainian autopsy and testimony from a former POW who was detained with him tell a different story—one marked by violence and medical neglect in Russian captivity.
Hryhoriev is one of over 200 Ukrainian POWs who have died in Russian captivity since the full-scale invasion three years ago. Human rights officials, UN representatives, the Ukrainian government, and a Ukrainian medical examiner who has conducted numerous autopsies on POWs indicate that abuse in Russian prisons likely played a role in many of these deaths.
Officials assert that the prison deaths contribute to the evidence of systematic brutality against captured Ukrainian soldiers by Russia. Forensic discrepancies, like Hryhoriev’s case, and the repatriation of bodies in a mutilated and decomposed state suggest attempts to cover up alleged torture, malnutrition, and inadequate medical care in prisons across Russia and occupied Ukraine.
Though Russian authorities did not comment, they have previously accused Ukraine of mistreating Russian POWs. The UN has partially corroborated these claims but noted that Ukraine’s violations are less frequent and severe than those attributed to Russia.
Hryhoriev had joined the Ukrainian army in 2019 after losing his job at a high school. When war erupted three years later, he was stationed in Mariupol, far from his central Poltava region home.
On April 10, 2022, Hryhoriev made his last call to his family, promising that “everything will be all right.” Two days later, his family learned of his capture. Following Mariupol’s fall to Russian forces, more than 2,000 soldiers were taken as prisoners.
His family was later contacted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, confirming his status as a registered POW, entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions. “We were told that means everything is fine ... Russia has to return him,” recalled his wife, Halyna.
In August 2022, she received a letter from him referring to her with a nickname, “My dear Halochka.” He assured her he was alive and well. Desperate for more information, his daughter Oksana searched Russian social media where POW videos frequently appeared, and eventually found him—looking gaunt and missing teeth, his gentle features partially covered by a beard.
In the likely coerced video, Hryhoriev claimed, “I'm alive and well.” Oksana noted that his appearance told a different story.
Fellow detainee Oleksii Honcharov, a Ukrainian POW, spent time with Hryhoriev at Kamensk-Shakhtinsky Correctional Colony in southwest Russia. He recounted how Hryhoriev endured severe punishment like all other prisoners there.
“Everyone got hit—no exceptions,” said Honcharov, who returned to Ukraine in a February prisoner swap. He suffered months of chest pain, experiencing mockery when pleading for medical attention. “Toward the end, I could barely walk,” said Honcharov, later diagnosed with tuberculosis, an increasingly common condition among POWs returned to Ukraine.
A 2024 UN report stated that 95% of released Ukrainian POWs faced “systematic” torture, including beatings, electric shocks, suffocation, and more. “This conduct could not be more unlawful,” said Danielle Bell, the UN's leading human rights monitor in Ukraine.
The report acknowledged some mistreatment of Russian POWs by Ukraine, but stated it ceased once POWs reached official detention centers.
Despite being strong and often outperforming others in forced exercises, Hryhoriev began showing signs of physical decline—dizziness and fatigue, eventually needing assistance to walk. Yet, according to Honcharov, inadequate health care from prison officials was a constant.
In the chilling environment of a forensic room, surrounded by the smell of decay, Inna Padei conducts autopsies on repatriated Ukrainian soldiers and civilians unearthed from mass graves. Hundreds of bodies arrive in black bags at her Kyiv morgue.
While some died in battle with clear injuries, former POWs often returned in prison uniforms, showing signs of mutilation and decomposition. Padei and her colleagues are tasked with determining how soldiers like Hryhoriev died. These findings offer crucial information for families and could form the basis for war crimes charges against Russia at the International Criminal Court.
Padei noted an almond-sized fracture on the skull of one recent case, indicating a potentially fatal blow. “These injuries may not always be the direct cause of death, but they clearly indicate the use of force and torture,” she said.
Amnesty International recently documented widespread torture of Ukrainian POWs in Russia, criticizing Russian secrecy about their conditions and questioning the accessibility of rights groups to prisons.
An estimated 206 of over 5,000 Ukrainian POWs repatriated by Russia died in captivity, says the Ukrainian government, with additional soldiers dying on the battlefield. Forensic experts expect the toll to rise as more bodies are returned.
Missing internal organs and efforts to conceal injuries complicate cause of death determinations. Ukrainian officials suspect these actions aim to obscure true causes of death. Decomposition poses additional challenges.
“They hold the bodies until they reach a state where nothing can be determined,” noted Petro Yatsenko, spokesperson for Ukraine's POW affairs agency.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized the importance of POW exchanges in any ceasefire, alongside returning Ukrainian civilians and children deported to Russia. A significant prisoner exchange occurred recently.
The Associated Press spoke with relatives of 21 Ukrainian POWs who died in captivity. Ukrainian autopsies revealed causes of death, ranging from heart failure to infections, suggest physical abuse and untreated injuries contributed significantly.
Cases reported extreme emaciation, gangrene, and electrocuted prisoners beaten days before succumbing. Whatever the returned prisoners described aligns with forensic findings, Padei confirmed.
Months into his detention at Kamensk-Shakhtinsky prison, Hryhoriev's health worsened after appearing on Russian social media. Rather than being hospitalized, he was moved to an isolated, damp, and dimly lit cell, shared with a Ukrainian paramedic, recounted Honcharov.
Hryhoriev’s life ended in this cell on May 20, 2023, per his Russian death certificate. However, it was not until over six months later that his family learned of his passing, after a former POW contacted them. It wasn't until March 2024 that they received a DNA-confirmed body with a Russian death certificate.
An autopsy in Ukraine contradicted the stroke claim, finding he died from internal bleeding caused by blunt abdominal trauma.
Hryhoriev's remains were returned to his family last June and interred in Pyriatyn. In his memory, his wife and elder daughter, Yana, also tattooed their wrists with his reassuring phrase.
“Now we have an angel in the sky watching over us,” Halyna expressed, maintaining hope that “everything will be all right.” (AP)
(Only the headline of this report may have been reworked by Editorji; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)