The family of 59-year-old Ukrainian soldier Serhii Hryhoriev spent months holding on to hope for his safe return. But instead of a reunion, they were faced with heartbreak when his body was returned from Russian custody. His death, now among over 200 confirmed fatalities of Ukrainian prisoners of war, has become part of a growing body of evidence cited by human rights monitors who warn of systematic abuse, medical neglect, and torture in Russian detention, AP reports. 

Serhii Hryhoriev worked as an office worker at a high school in central Ukraine. He enlisted in the military in 2019, and by early 2022 was deployed to Mariupol. On 10 April 2022, as the Russian siege of the city intensified, he made what would be his final call home. As he had done many times before, he tried to comfort his wife and daughters with the words: “Everything will be all right.”

That was the last time they heard his voice

Two days later, a fellow soldier’s relative informed the family of their unit’s capture. After the city’s fall, over 2,000 defenders were taken into Russian captivity. Soon after, the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed to his wife that he had been registered as a POW, which should have ensured legal protections under the Geneva Conventions.

A letter from him arrived in August. It was short, affectionate, and ended with the same words: “Everything will be all right.” But what the family later saw online — a video where he appeared frail, bearded, and toothless — suggested otherwise.

Survivor testimony exposes brutal conditions

Hryhoriev was held at the Kamensk-Shakhtinsky Correctional Colony in Russia’s southwest. Former detainee Oleksii Honcharov, who was imprisoned with him, recounted routine beatings for all captives.

“Everyone got hit — no exceptions,” he told AP.

According to Honcharov, violence continued even when prisoners showed serious health problems. He described months of chest pain that received no medical attention. “Toward the end, I could barely walk,” he said. After returning to Ukraine, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis — a condition increasingly found among former POWs.

Hryhoriev, despite his age, was initially resilient. But over time, he became dizzy and weak, eventually needing assistance to walk. Still, according to Honcharov, guards refused to hospitalize him and instead confined him to a cold, unlit cell, isolated except for a fellow Ukrainian prisoner assigned to watch him. He died there about a month later — on 20 May 2023, as recorded by Russian authorities.

Russians claimed stroke, autopsy showed blunt-force trauma

For more than half a year, Hryhoriev’s family heard nothing. Then, in March 2024, Ukrainian police informed them a body had arrived, tagged with his name and accompanied by a Russian death certificate citing a stroke.

Ukrainian forensic experts performed an autopsy. It contradicted the Russian version, identifying blunt-force trauma to the abdomen and damage to the spleen as the cause of death. His body was finally buried in Pyriatyn, Poltava Oblast, in June.

A growing count of dead, and few clear answers

The case of Hryhoriev is one among at least 206 known Ukrainian POW deaths in Russian custody, based on Ukrainian government figures, AP says. Another 245 are believed to have been executed on the battlefield by Russian troops. Human rights organizations and forensic investigators are trying to document the full scope of the violations.

Forensic analysis of repatriated Ukrainian POWs has revealed signs of torture, including fractures, bruises, signs of gangrene or untreated infections, and sometimes missing organs, according to forensic expert Inna Padei. Ukrainian officials report that Russia often withholds bodies until they are too decomposed for reliable autopsy. These findings, alongside survivor testimony, are being compiled to support war crimes investigations. Amnesty International has also accused Russia of concealing POW conditions and obstructing access to its prisons.

Forbidden stories: Ukrainian journalist went to document torture in Russian detention — her body returned without organs

According to a 2024 United Nations report, 95% of released Ukrainian POWs experienced systematic torture, including beatings, suffocation, mock executions, electric shocks, and sexual abuse. By contrast, the report said that while some Russian POWs were mistreated during their initial capture, abuse stopped once they were transferred to official Ukrainian detention facilities.

A family’s tribute

After Hryhoriev’s death was confirmed, his wife and both daughters marked their wrists with the same phrase he had so often repeated during the war: “Everything will be all right.” To them, he remains not just a victim, but “an angel in the sky.”