Ukrainian law enforcement has charged Viacheslav Perevozkin, head of pre-trial detention center No. 3 in the city of Kizel in Russia's Perm region, according to the Office of the Prosecutor General and the Security Service of Ukraine.
Investigators say Perevozkin organized violence against at least five Ukrainian civilian prisoners since taking his position in July 2024. Two civilians died as a result of the mistreatment: journalist Viktoria Roschina and Yevhen Matveyev, head of the Dniprorudne city council in Zaporizhzhia region.
"Perevozkin organized the detention of Ukrainian civilians in inhumane, unsanitary and exhausting conditions," law enforcement officials report. Prisoners were held at low temperatures without warm clothing or hot water, with limited access to food, drinking water and hygiene supplies. They were forced to stand in cells for more than 16 hours a day without being allowed to sit or lie down.
The investigation found Perevozkin and his subordinates organized systematic torture of Ukrainian civilian prisoners. "They beat them, tortured them with electric shocks, struck them with hands, feet and rubber batons," according to investigators.
Perevozkin faces charges of cruel treatment of the civilian population and cruel treatment of the civilian population combined with premeditated murder committed by a group of persons in conspiracy. The Russian faces life imprisonment. Authorities are now resolving the issue of declaring the suspect wanted.
Roschina disappeared on temporarily occupied territories on 3 August 2023. Russia first confirmed it was holding her captive only in May 2024. Russians had also kidnapped the journalist in March 2022, but she was released after ten days.
Her death became known on 10 October 2024, when Russian officials informed her father Volodymyr. The Ukrainian side later confirmed the information.
Roschina was held at correctional colony No. 77 in Berdiansk, pre-trial detention center No. 2 in Taganrog, and shortly before her death was transferred to the detention center in Kizel.
According to investigative journalists from Forbidden Stories, Roschina's body was transferred in February during an exchange of 757 bodies of fallen defenders. The examination revealed that some internal organs were missing. She was buried on 8 August at Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv.
Matveyev spent 2 years and 8 months in captivity after Russians captured Dniprorudne—a city in Zaporizhzhia region on the Dnipro River coast—in late February 2022. The city remains under Russian occupation.
According to Ukrainian law enforcement, Matveyev died on 7 September 2024, at pre-trial detention center No. 3 in Kizel. "Death resulted from closed blunt trauma to the torso with multiple rib fractures, damage to the lungs and pleural layers," investigators state.
Matveyev's body was returned to Ukraine in December.
