On January 26, the Central District Court of Mykolaiv delivered a verdict in absentia in a case involving the forced transfer of Ukrainian prisoners from a correctional colony in the Mykolaiv region during the russian occupation.
The organizer of the operation, Yevhen Sobolev, former head of Northern Correctional Colony No. 90, who later sided with the russian occupation authorities, was found guilty under Part 1 of Article 438 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code — ordering violations of the laws and customs of war.
What is known about the convicted man
Yevhen Oleksandrovych Sobolev, born on July 25, 1985, is a native of Nova Kakhovka in Ukraine’s Kherson region and a Ukrainian citizen. Before russia’s full-scale invasion, he served as head of the state-run Northern Correctional Colony No. 90.
After the outbreak of the full-scale war, Sobolev defected to the occupying authorities. On May 7, 2022, he was appointed head of the so-called “Department of the Penitentiary Service in Kherson Region,” effectively taking control of the region’s prison system and overseeing the seized facilities, including colonies No. 90 and No. 5.
According to Ukrainian investigators, Sobolev is currently evading justice in the temporarily occupied territories and is believed to be permanently residing in the city of Henichesk.
He has previously been convicted by Ukrainian courts. In October 2023, the Uzhhorod City District Court sentenced him to 13 years in prison for collaboration. In February 2024, the Khadzhibey District Court in Odesa sentenced him to life imprisonment for high treason.
Circumstances of the crime
The court established that on May 28, 2022, acting on Sobolev’s orders, russian troops seized the Snihurivska Correctional Colony No. 5 in the village of Tsentralne, Mykolaiv region. At the time, the facility was located in a combat zone but remained under Ukrainian jurisdiction.
That morning, armed russian soldiers surrounded the colony with armored vehicles. Staff members were forced into the assembly hall, their mobile phones confiscated, and were effectively held hostage. Meanwhile, other soldiers forcibly removed prisoners from their living quarters.
Witnesses testified that inmates were forced out at gunpoint, subjected to physical violence, while shots were fired into the air and stun grenades were used. The prisoners were loaded into military vehicles without explanation and without their consent.
Many detainees were beaten with rifle butts, kicked, and punched; some lost consciousness. Prisoners serving life sentences were subjected to particularly severe abuse.
The inmates were not allowed to take personal belongings, clothing, or hygiene items. Despite the fact that many suffered from tuberculosis, they were transported without necessary medication. Property left behind at the colony was later looted or destroyed by the occupying forces.
In total, 97 people — 95 convicted prisoners and two pretrial detainees — were illegally transferred that day. They were initially taken to the russian-occupied Holoprystan penal colony in the Kherson region and, several months later, transported through Crimea to penal institutions in russia’s Rostov and Volgograd regions, as well as Mordovia.
The court concluded that Sobolev’s actions constituted a deliberate violation of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the forcible transfer of protected persons from occupied territories.
As of the time of the trial, only 18 of the 97 transferred prisoners had returned to Ukraine. Most returned via third countries — including Georgia, Moldova, and Belarus — with assistance from volunteers and human rights organizations.
The sentence
Sobolev did not appear at the court hearings. He was represented by a state-appointed defense lawyer, who told the court she had been unable to establish contact with him or ascertain his position.
Taking into account his previous convictions, the court sentenced Sobolev to life imprisonment, ordered the confiscation of all his property, and stripped him of his rank of Major of the Internal Service.