According to the Russian propaganda media, one of the captured Ukrainian servicemen of the "Azov" regiment, 55-year-old Oleksandr Ishchenko, died in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
On July 31, Ishchenko was not taken from the pretrial detention center to the court hearing, and his lawyer informed the court that the soldier had died.
The Coordinating Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War confirmed to Babel the fact of the Ukrainianʼs death, but did not specify the details.
Updated at 3:30 p.m.: The Coordination Headquarters noted that they are aware of this case, all the circumstances are being carefully studied.
"Unfortunately, we again have questions for the International Committee of the Red Cross, which must monitor the conditions of detention of prisoners in the Russian Federation and in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. We need exchanges and we do them regularly, but there are still many of our servicemen and civilians in captivity. The international community must force the Kremlin to allow international observers to the places of detention," the headquarters emphasized.
As his wife Olena told Babel earlier, Oleksandr was a sailor. He returned from the flight a few days before the full-scale invasion — on February 17, 2022, ten days later he joined the “Azov” regiment and became a driver.
It is not known when the man was captured, but it was definitely during active hostilities in Mariupol. The family learned that he was in captivity from the photo, but they were not allowed to talk to him. He spent a year in the Donetsk pre-trial detention center, and later ended up in Rostov.
What business is it about?
Ishchenko was involved in the case together with 23 other Ukrainians (two of them — Davyd Kasatkin and Dmytro Labinsky — were later exchanged). Russia accuses them of involvement in a "terrorist organization" and an "attempt to seize power" in the occupied part of the Donetsk region.
Most of them were captured or detained in the spring of 2022 in Mariupol. At different times, the prisoners were associated with the "Azov" regiment, but some of them had already resigned from the service or held civilian positions in the regiment at the time of their capture. For example, among the prisoners there are 9 women who worked as cooks or in the supply department.