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Russian national who died in Ukrainian prison might have been killed, Moscow says

According to the Russian foreign ministry, the autopsy revealed multiple serious injuries, including four fractured ribs and a closed craniocerebral injury

MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/. Russian national Valery Ivanov, a volunteer fighting alongside the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) who died in a penal colony in western Ukraine’s Lvov Region, might have been killed, the Russian foreign ministry said on Friday.

According to the ministry, Russia’s consulate general in Lvov was notified on December 10 about the death of Russian citizen Valery Ivanov, who was serving a sentence in the Drogobich colony of charges of "terrorist activities and aggressive warfare."

"Russian diplomats promptly visited the colony," the ministry noted. "According to the colony’s chief, Ivanov died of injuries after falling from a portable ladder he was using to change a light bulb."

"According to our information, the autopsy revealed multiple serious injuries, including four fractured ribs and a closed craniocerebral injury. It gives grounds to think that it was an intentional murder of a Russian national," the ministry said, adding that a pre-trial check is underway and Russia’s consulate general in Lvov is in contact with Ukraine’s police and Ivanov’s family.

"We continue to keep a close eye on the situation and insist on an unbiased and objective investigation of the Russian national’s death," the ministry added.

The death of a Russian national in a Ukrainian prison was reported by Olga Kobtseva, an LPR’s representative in the humanitarian subgroup of the Contact Group, on December 18. She said she had had a telephone contact with Ivanov, who was to be swapped under a prisoner exchange program, several days prior to that. Later on, in her words, she received information that he had been "beaten up by the prison guards and placed in a disciplinary unit where he died of injuries."

According to Kobtseva, Ivanov’s name was on the list of prisoners to be exchanged back in December 2017. But right before the exchange, the Ukrainian authorities refused to release him and a number of other Russian nationals.

It was found put at this week’s meeting of the Contact Group that Ivanov’s name was still of Kiev’s list of prisoners to be released to the LPR.