Former Russian prisoner reveals he saw kidnapped Kherson mayor in FSB prison

A person who spent 2.5 years in a secret Federal Security Service (FSB) prison in occupied Simferopol and later returned to Ukraine has revealed that they saw the kidnapped mayor of Kherson, Ihor Kolyhaiev, during their detention, says war crimes documenter Hanna Mamonova from the Laboratory for Public Interest Journalism.

On 25 April 2022, Russian forces seized the Kherson City Council building, and by 26 April, they installed their own “city government.” Kolyhaiev remained in the city, working remotely until his kidnapping on 28 June 2022. Andrii Yusov, a representative of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, confirmed that the mayor of Kherson, Ihor Kolyhaiev, was detained by Russian forces.

“I spoke to a person who spent 2.5 years in a basement in Simferopol under FSB custody. It was a secret prison. The man recently returned to Ukraine and said he saw Kolyhaiev, the kidnapped mayor of Kherson, in the FSB basement. The mayor is holding up,” reported Mamonova.

Mamonova added that the last confirmation she received regarding Kolyhaiev’s detention in the FSB basement was in the spring of 2024. The war crimes documented also noted that the Russians are concealing the mayor’s location and denying the existence of a prison in the FSB building’s basement.

In 2022, the Russians hastily set up a secret prison in the basement of the FSB building in response to mass abductions in the occupied southern regions of Ukraine—Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The detainees were then transported to Crimea. Due to a lack of cells, partitions were quickly constructed in the basement, with no toilets or washbasins.

Interrogations are carried out by FSB officers brought from Russia, not local Crimean forces, working on a rotational basis. During interrogations, they use polygraphs and subjected their victims to physical abuse.

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