Russian prison guards who tortured Ukrainians have been charged in Ukraine
Ukrainian law enforcement officials have charged two employees of a Russian penal colony in the Tula Region, whom investigators believe to be involved in the systematic torture of Ukrainian civilian prisoners.
The suspects are employees of the federal state institution “Penal Colony No. 1 of the Federal Penitentiary Service Directorate for the Tula Region.”
According to the “Book of Torturers” project, the suspects were identified with the assistance of analysts from the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
The individuals implicated in the case are:
- Alexey Vyacheslavovich Kochetov, born February 28, 1988, a native of the city of Donskoy, Tula Region, Russia;
- Yevgeniy Oleksiyovych Myasnikov, born January 29, 2000, a native of the city of Donskoy in the Tula Region, Russia.
According to the investigation, in 2022, Kochetov and Myasnikov held the positions of junior inspectors at Maximum-Security Penitentiary No. 1 in the Tula Region, located in the city of Donskoy.
The colony is located approximately 240 km from Moscow and 640 km from Kharkiv. According to Ukrainian law enforcement officials, the Russian side is holding Ukrainian citizens—both prisoners of war and civilians—at this facility.
Investigators believe that Kocheto and Myasnikov, along with other prison staff and Russian special forces personnel, systematically subjected civilian prisoners to physical and psychological abuse out of hatred for Ukrainians.
According to the investigation, the victims included at least four men who were detained in March 2022 in the Kyiv region.
As noted in the case files, the torture began immediately after the Ukrainians were brought to the prison.
During the so-called “intake” process, the prisoners were forced to march through a line of Russian prison guards. According to investigators, each guard could strike them with their hands, feet, rubber batons, plastic pipes, or a stun gun.
The beatings, law enforcement officials claim, continued even as the victims were escorted to their cells.
The prisoners were forced to stand in uncomfortable positions—facing the wall, with their legs spread wide apart, their heads pressed against the wall, and their palms facing outward. After that, they were beaten with fists and feet.
According to the investigation, the victims lost their balance from the blows, fell to the floor, or lost consciousness; however, they were then forced to get up, and the beatings continued.
Investigators determined that, according to the investigation, Kochetov forced one of the detainees into a “push-up” position, after which he struck him in the face with his palms and kicked him in the torso. He is also alleged to have stood on the victim’s back.
According to the investigation, Myasnikov forced another victim to hang from a metal grate, after which he punched him in the stomach. When the man jumped down, the prison guard reportedly used a stun gun on him, striking him in the leg and neck.
According to law enforcement officials, prisoners were beaten even without any substantial reason or for trivial reasons.
In one incident, the investigation claims, Myasnikov beat a man with a baton and a stun gun after seeing him smile on the video surveillance system.
In another instance, according to the investigation, a victim was beaten because he was getting dressed slowly as he was leaving the shower room to go for a walk.
Oleksiy Kochetov and Yevgeniy Myasnikov were notified of their status as suspects under Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine—cruel treatment of the civilian population.
According to Ukrainian law enforcement officials, their actions seriously violated the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and Additional Protocol I.
According to the law enforcement report, the alleged actions may constitute a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The criminal case has been entered into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations under No. 42023000000000055 dated January 23, 2023.
Ukrainian law enforcement agencies continue to document crimes committed by Russian military personnel and representatives of the penitentiary system against Ukrainian citizens.
This was reported by the “Egyga Katov” project.
Earlier, the National Police of Ukraine identified one of the direct perpetrators of the torture of a Ukrainian civilian in occupied Simferopol. The man was illegally detained for over eight months in Pretrial Detention Center No. 2, where he was systematically beaten, humiliated because of his nationality, and tortured with stun guns.
Earlier in occupied Crimea, a local resident was fined 30,000 rubles for a sympathetic comment regarding the death of a Ukrainian serviceman.
Previously, the Russian occupation authorities sentenced a 24-year-old resident of the Donetsk region to 14 years in a strict-regime penal colony for allegedly passing information to Ukrainian intelligence about the deployment of Russian troops in the Donetsk region.
