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Serhii Khrolenko

Serhii Khrolenko

Date of disappearance: February 26, 2022

Place of disappearance: Dymer village, Kyiv region

 

On the day of his disappearance, 54-year-old Serhii Khrolenko, a master furniture maker from the village of Dymer, Kyiv region, went to the grocery store.

“It’s about 900 meters from home. I went without my phone and passport because I hoped to return quickly. I took an ordinary shopping bag. It was about 3:30 pm. And then, a Russian armored personnel carrier drove up to the store. Tanks were coming. Everyone ran away, but my father decided just to keep walking home. They started calling him, saying, where are you going? He answered that he was going home. They said, “You’ll come with us. My father refused. Then the Russians ran up, grabbed him, shoved him into an armored personnel carrier, and drove him away in the direction of the village center,” Yana, Serhii’s daughter, recounts the words of witnesses. She says that through Dymer, Russian military equipment was moving from Katyuzhanka towards Demydiv.

Back when Dymer was under occupation, Yana tried to find out information about her father from Oleksandr Kharchenko, a local collaborator and Russian protege.

“The traitor confirmed that my father was being held captive on the territory of a foundry in Dymer at 22B Vyshneva Street. He said he was detained because of his allegedly rude behavior to the Russian military. Kharchenko promised that he would be released on March 19. However, this never happened,” says Yana.

It is known that before the retreat, the Russians took hostages from the northern regions of Ukraine to Russia through Belarus. However, Yana has no exact information about the place of detention and the condition of her father, although his name has appeared several times in the lists of hostages on search telegram channels.

Yana received a response to her request from the National Information Bureau, which collects information about civilian detainees in Ukraine. The letter stated “(Serhii’s) being in captivity,” but law enforcement officials did not disclose any other details.

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