Serhii Shevchuk
Date of disappearance: March 18, 2022
Place of disappearance: Krasnopillia village, Sumy region
Serhii Shevchuk lived in Krasnopillia, Sumy region, near the border with Russia. It was there that he met Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On March 18, 2022, the man went to Novooleksandrivka, a nearby village, to visit his grandmother after the village was shelled by Russians. The connection with Shevchuk disappeared, and when his sister finally got through to him, a stranger answered the phone. He answered in Russian that he was “walking around”. Later, Russian soldiers at a nearby checkpoint told Serhiy’s mother Natalia that her son had been taken to Russia because “he was an officer.” However, the woman emphasizes that Shevchuk had resigned from the army before the full-scale Russian invasion and was a civilian at the time of his abduction. In April 2023, the ICRC and the NIB confirmed to Natalia that her son was being illegally detained in Russia. In January 2024, one of the released Ukrainian prisoners said that as of December 2023, Shevchuk was in penal colony No. 4 in Novooleksiyivka, Belgorod Oblast, and that his health had seriously deteriorated.
— “He developed anorexia and heart problems as a result of his illegal detention. His mental state has deteriorated due to torture. Serhii hardly moves around,” — Natalia recounts the former prisoner of war’s words.
