National Guardsman suspected of torturing Ukrainian prisoners in Russian colony taken into custody

A National Guardsman suspected of torturing Ukrainian prisoners in a Russian prison has been taken into custody.

SBU reported this.

The special service does not specify his name, but Babelʼs sources in law enforcement agencies emphasize that we are talking about Dmytro Matyushchenko.

According to the investigation, he was captured by the Russians in June 2022 and began collaborating with the Russians. For this, he was appointed "head of household" on the 2nd floor of Barrack No. 8 in "Kalinin Correctional Colony No. 27" in temporarily occupied Horlivka in the Donetsk region.

In this "position", the defendant treated other prisoners of war cruelly: he pressured them, threatened them with violence, and forced 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.

In March 2025, Matyushchenko was released as part of a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Since then, law enforcement has collected numerous testimonies from witnesses with whom the defendant was in a Russian prison.

During a search of the soldierʼs actual residence, a smartphone with evidence of his crimes was found.

Matyushchenko was informed of suspicion under Part 2 of Article 431 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (violence or cruel treatment of other prisoners of war by a prisoner of war who is the senior among them). He was sent to custody, the man faces up to 8 years in prison.

For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.