Oleksandr Chyrkov
Oleksandr Chyrkov
Date of disappearance: March 17, 2022
Place of disappearance: Hlibivka, Kyiv region
Oleksandr Chyrkov is a funeral home director in Hlibivka, Kyiv region. After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, he and his family found themselves under occupation. On March 16, armed occupiers broke into the Chyrkovs’ home and inspected their weapons, and the next day, other Russians illegally searched the house again, took their weapons and a collection of knives, and abducted Oleksandr along with his neighbor Dmytro Bohayevskyi. Later, Oleksandr’s wife, Tetiana, learned that he was first taken to the foundry of the Viknaland plant in Dymer. There, the Russians forced detainees to sign various papers and labeled Dmytro and Oleksandr as a “spotter” and “shooter,” citing Chyrkov’s possession of weapons at home.
Subsequently, the occupiers detained Chyrkov in unused refrigeration rooms in Hostomel before transporting him through Belarus to a detention center in Novozybkov, Bryansk region, where a brutal “reception” awaited: the Russians beat Ukrainian detainees with batons. Later, the captors held Oleksandr in a detention center in the temporarily occupied Sevastopol and in a penal settlement in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Rostov region. By at least November 2023, Chyrkov remained in the Kursk detention center. Ukrainians released from these detention centers shared harrowing stories with Oleksandr’s family about appalling food conditions, torture, and ideological pressure.
“In Kursk, they could wake you up in the middle of the night — you’d have to run through corridors carrying your mattress, meaning you constantly had to be ready for anything. In the morning, they forced prisoners to sing the Russian anthem,” Tetiana Chyrkova recounts their words.
This publication was compiled with the support of the International RenaissanceFoundation. It’s content is the exclusive responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the International Renaissance Foundation.
