Dozens of Ukrainian citizens were systematically abducted, tortured and subjected to forced labor at an illegal detention facility in the occupied settlement of Kalanchak in Kherson region, according to a report by the Media Initiative for Human Rights. Based on eyewitness testimony and materials from the Ukrainian investigation collected by human rights advocates, the facility operated for a long time outside any official records of the occupation authorities, effectively functioning as a torture center for abducted civilians.

A key figure in the creation of the repressive apparatus in Kalanchak was 54-year-old Serhii Shcheglov, a former Ukrainian police officer from Zaporizhzhia region.

He resigned from the police force in 2010 due to health reasons. In late August 2022, the russians appointed him head of the occupation police department in Kalanchak. Following his appointment, systematic abductions and torture of local residents began. In the autumn of 2022, occupation authorities launched targeted abductions of men suspected of having served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine or territorial defense units. Some of them remain missing.

For these actions, Shcheglov was sentenced in absentia by a Ukrainian court to 15 years in prison.

After russian forces withdrew from the right bank of Kherson region in November 2022, detainees from Kherson were transferred to the temporary detention facility in Kalanchak. The facility contained four cells designed for four people and one cell designed for three, yet each typically held at least six detainees. At times, as many as 14 people were held in a single cell. Prisoners had to take turns sleeping on the floor, beneath tables and on bunks.

The head of the detention facility, a russian security officer identified by detainees as "Andrey Olegovich," reportedly beat prisoners with a baton and used a stun gun against them.

Detainees were denied outdoor exercise and forced to work without pay, including building checkpoint infrastructure, cleaning the premises and washing vehicles used by security personnel.

On the second floor of the building, the occupiers established a torture chamber where abducted individuals — primarily residents of Kalanchak and occasionally visitors from Crimea — were taken for interrogation.

One of the defining features of the Kalanchak detention facility was its complete procedural invisibility. In the spring of 2023, when officials from russia arrived to inspect the site, it emerged that no detainees were listed in any official records and that the police department itself was officially considered non-operational.

Around the middle of 2024, a wave of personnel changes took place across the occupied territories. Shcheglov was replaced as head of Kalanchak's occupation police by Serhii Bohan, who came from occupied Crimea.

However, on January 1, 2026, Bohan was killed in a strike by the Ukrainian Defense Forces on a restaurant in the resort settlement of Khorly. According to available information, Shcheglov — who had remained in Kalanchak as secretary of the occupation "anti-terrorism commission" — subsequently resumed leadership of the department.