Ukrainian Citizen Convicted of Treason and Kidnapping
Two brothers, one of whom was a minor, were abducted during the occupation of the Kyiv region in the spring of 2022.
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A former Ukrainian Navy serviceman from Crimea who defected to the enemy has been sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison for war crimes and treason.
The investigation established that Ivan Savchenko kidnapped two brothers, one of whom was a minor, during the occupation of the Kyiv region in the spring of 2022.
The story of the brothers – Oleksandr Yahodynskyi, 30, and Vladyslav Yahodynskyi, 17, first came to light in July 2022 after journalists from Slidstvo.info reported on their abduction. Their mother, Larysa Yahodynska, described how the brothers were stopped at a checkpoint by occupying forces near the village of Khocheva and transported to Belarus. She managed to secure the return of her younger son, Vladyslav, but her older son remains in Russian captivity.
Yahodynska told LB.ua that he was being held in one of Russia’s harshest pre-trial detention centres – in the town of Pakino, Vladimir region. According to her, the information she receives about her son comes from fellow Ukrainians who have been freed from Russian prisons. She does not know for certain if he has been charged with any crime.
Savchenko, a Ukrainian citizen from Sevastopol, was identified as a suspect in the detention and transfer of the Yahodynskyi brothers to Belarus and in late 2022 he was charged in absentia with a war crime and high treason.
Prior to 2014, Savchenko was a contract serviceman in the Ukrainian Navy, serving as a helmsman-signalman in the 28th Search and Rescue Ship Division.
According to the investigation, during Russia’s occupation of Crimea, he refused an order to relocate to Ukrainian-controlled territory, violated his military oath and defected to the Russian armed forces. During the full-scale invasion, he took part in the capture of the Kyiv region as a member of a Russian occupying unit.
On March 26, 2022, at a checkpoint outside the village of Khocheva in the Vyshhorod district, Savchenko and three other then-unidentified Russian soldiers detained the Yahodynskyi brothers. They forced them into an armoured personnel carrier (APC), placed black bin bags over their heads and drove them away.
“After crossing the Uzh River, the Russian Federation soldiers who were at the checkpoint with Savchenko pulled black garbage bags over the brothers’ heads and remarked to each other that they were headed for the city of Prypiat,” the notice of suspicion stated. “About half an hour later, the APC stopped and the brothers were ordered to get out.
“After that, without removing the bin bags from the detainees’ heads, unidentified individuals bound their hands behind their backs with adhesive tape, wrapped tape around their heads covering their eyes and the lower part of their faces, and inflicted numerous blows to various parts of their bodies.”
The Russian soldiers then took the brothers to an unknown location. That same day, they were handed over to unidentified individuals in black uniforms with the inscription Russian Militia on the back. In the building where the brothers were taken, there were people in green camouflage uniforms with insignia of the Border Guard Service of the Republic of Belarus. It then became clear that the young men were at a border post in the Belarusian town of Narovlya.
The brothers were separated. That evening, on March 26, 2022, Vladyslav was moved to a hostel in the city of Mozyr, where he was held for four days.
“On March 30, the director of the Mozyr city orphanage, a woman named Alla, came to the hostel and moved him there,” the indictment read. “The following day, she gave Vladyslav a mobile phone to contact his family.”
With the help of the Red Cross and volunteers, Vladyslav was returned home on April 22, 2022.
Savchenko has been on a wanted list since January 2023. After the investigation concluded in May 2023, his case was sent to court on charges of war crimes – specifically the unlawful detention of two civilians and making death threats – and high treason. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for June 2023. The trial lasted for nearly three years.
Evidence and Defence
During the trial, the defence argued that the prosecution had failed to prove the defendant’s guilt on the war crime charge. The verdict statedthat according to the defence counsel, no witness could confirm that Savchenko was directly involved in the brothers’ detention. Consequently, the defence requested an acquittal on that charge. However, the defence attorney did not contest the evidence for the high treason charge. In court, two witnesses testified that after the occupation of Crimea began, Savchenko refused to follow a directive to relocate and defected to the armed forces of the occupying power. The court also examined a series of documents from the personnel centre of the Ukrainian Navy.
As for the evidence of the war crime of the abduction of civilians, the court reviewed written evidence from the investigation, video files and witness accounts. This included testimony from Vladyslav’s younger brother, who described the occupation of Khocheva and confirmed the circumstances of the crime.
The verdict stated that during the investigation, the survivor identified the convicted man from a photograph as the person who “on March 26, 2022, at a checkpoint in the village of Khocheva, Vyshhorod district, Kyiv region, while a serviceman of the Russian Federation, threatened him and his brother directly with physical violence and also took part in their detention”.
“During the court proceedings, the survivor stated that he does not remember some details due to the passage of time and his condition; however, he signed all procedural documents during the pre-trial investigation voluntarily and the questioning was conducted without any duress, in the presence of a legal representative and an attorney,” the court noted. For this reason and in accordance with the law, the court examined the survivor’s testimony, which was video-recorded during the pre-trial investigation and ruled it to be admissible evidence.
“During this investigative procedure, the survivor confirmed that he was unlawfully detained and threatened with death. He also provided more detailed testimony regarding the defendant’s involvement in the alleged crimes, which is consistent with the crime scene reconstruction,” the verdict stated.
Three other witnesses identified Savchenko as a Russian serviceman who was stationed at a checkpoint near their homes during the occupation of the village of Khocheva.
On February 12, the Ivankiv District Court sentenced Savchenko in absentia to 15 years for treason and 11 years for war crimes under Article 111, Part 1, Article 28, Part 2, Article 438, Part 1 of the criminal code of Ukraine. By partially absorbing the sentences, the court issued a final sentence of 15 years in prison. The court also ordered the accused to pay UAH 4,160 (95 US dollars) to cover the costs of a forensic DNA analysis.
The verdict will become legally binding if an appeal is not filed within 30 days of its announcement.
