Where is Serhiy Khrypun?

The Red Cross reports that Serhiy Khrypun, a civilian citizen of Ukraine, was included in the list of prisoners of war by the Russian side.

Serhiy Khrypun was kidnapped on March 24 in the village of Nove in the Zaporizhzhya region. This village was occupied by Russians in the first couple of hours of the large-scale invasion. 47-year-old Serhiy used to live in the town of Orikhiv, and he moved to Nove on February 22. He worked as a guard at the local agricultural company. Right after the occupation, Kadyrivtsi (Chechen Republic’s leader, Kadyrov’s, followers) settled in its building. They took Khrypun and two employees hostage. For the whole month, people lived at their workplace, because the occupants forbade them to leave the territory. On the morning of March 24, Serhiy called home and shared the good news: the invaders had left the village and he would be back home soon. Two hours later he called and said that other Russians came in on the Kamaz trucks to pick up the equipment and food left by Kadyrivtsi.

Since then the contact with Serhiy was lost. Later, the company’s manager saw footage from the surveillance cameras showing Russians rummaging his three employees. They put them in Kamaz and took them to an unknown destination. On April 29 the Khrypun family was contacted by some war prisoner. He was lucky to be able to return home as a result of the exchange and said that Serhiy was in Russia. He was with him in the same jail cell, in the pre-trial detention center in the city of Kursk. Ukrainian prisoners are abused there in every possible way - they are poorly fed, tortured, and brutally beaten. All Serhiy's ribs are broken, and he is in a dangerous condition.

Later, with the help of the Red Cross, the family found out that Serhiy Khrypun, a civilian citizen of Ukraine, was included in the list of prisoners of war by the Russian side. The Russians do not name the reasons for this. They also deny the fact of torture.