Polish citizen Krzysztof Gałos died in a pre-trial detention center in Taganrog, Gazeta Wyborcza reports. According to the newspaper, Gałos’s death was confirmed by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry’s reply to the Polish side, the 58-year-old Pole was detained in Russian-occupied Melitopol, in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, for “opposing the special military operation,” that is, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He allegedly died of natural causes — from “cardiomyopathy of unspecified etiology, which led to cerebral edema, pulmonary edema, and acute cardiovascular failure, the immediate cause of death.” Gałos was buried there in Taganrog on July 14, 2023.
At the same time, for several years the Russian authorities did not inform their Polish counterparts about the detention of a Polish citizen and did not respond to diplomatic notes, Gałos’s son and Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maciej Wiewiór told the newspaper.
According to the report, Gałos, a resident of Kraków, traveled to Ukraine in April 2023 because he wanted “to see what was happening there.” According to Slidstvo.info, after crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border he was in the Odesa and Kherson areas under Ukrainian control. He told Ukrainian soldiers that he wanted to go to occupied Enerhodar because, according to him, his girlfriend was waiting for him there. The soldiers did not allow him to continue, but he nevertheless managed to reach Russian-occupied territory. There he was detained.
Journalists from Slidstvo.info established that Gałos was taken to Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 2 in Taganrog. Ukrainian servicemen who were held there told the outlet that they had witnessed his torture. This was also confirmed by the Russian human rights organization Memorial.
As Ukrainian serviceman Oleksandr, who was also held in the same detention center, told Vot Tak, the Pole was brutally beaten after he once looked out the cell window and saw security officers in the prison yard without balaclavas. He was “beaten with batons and kicked for 15 minutes.” This, it is claimed, was what caused his death.
“Later I ran into guys who had been there directly. They said that his [Gałos’s] legs were swollen. In the morning they told him, ‘At least eat a little.’ And he said, ‘I think I’m going to die.’ He lifted a spoon to his mouth, but it fell from his hand, saliva started running, and he lost consciousness. The guys carried him out through the cells. And his legs were just blue,” the source told Vot Tak.
Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna was also held in Taganrog’s SIZO-2. In August 2023, she was detained during a trip to occupied Mariupol. Only in May 2024 did Russia’s Defense Ministry confirm that she had been detained and was being held in Russia. In October 2024, her parents received notice of her death.
A Ukrainian woman who was held in SIZO-2 in Taganrog said she had seen Roshchyna while she was being held there: the journalist weighed only 30 kilograms, had been tortured with electric shocks, and had scars from injuries on her body. Based on this information, the Ukrainian authorities long believed that she had been killed in Taganrog and issued an in absentia notice of suspicion against the head of SIZO-2 in Taganrog for organizing Roshchyna’s torture.
