The kidnapped mayor of Kherson Kolykhayev was seen in a secret FSS prison in Simferopol

Mayor of Kherson Ihor Kolykhaiev, photo: Ukrainian South

The mayor of Kherson, Ihor Kolyhaiev, who was kidnapped by the Russians in 2022, is probably being held in a secret prison in the FSS building in Simferopol, on the territory of occupied Crimea.

Hanna Mamonova, a documenter of war crimes at the Public Interest Journalism Laboratory, reported that she had a conversation with the prisoner who saw him there.

Kolykhiev got to Crimea after the Russian army left the Right Bank of the Kherson region. The mayor was first held in a separate cell of the detention center, then he and the prisoners were transported to Oleshky, and from there to the secret prison in Chongar.

«He was not sitting alone. I spoke to a person who was there. He told how they played home-made checkers together, a naval battle. Then the mayor was taken to the secret prison of the Russians in Chongar. It was made in a two- or three-story building in the center of the village. Until February 24, our border guards lived there. This is a dormitory,» writes the journalist.

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A prisoner who was kept there for two and a half years told the journalist about the secret FSS prison in occupied Simferopol. According to her, he saw Kolykhaiev there.

«I spoke with a person who spent 2.5 years in Simferopol in the basement of the FSS. This is a secret prison. The man recently returned to Ukraine. He says that he saw Kolykhaiev, the kidnapped mayor of Kherson, in the basement of the FSS. The mayor is holding on,» writes Hanna Mamonova.

Anna Mamonova received information that Ihor Kolykhaiev was transported to Crimea from the Kherson region in the spring of 2024.

«Nothing has changed in half a year. The Russians are hiding where Kolykhaev is being held. They also deny the existence of a prison in the basement of the FSS building. But little by little, people are freed from there, return to Ukraine and secretly tell about who they saw there. Speaking openly is dangerous for prisoners,» she added.

The prison itself, hastily created in 2022 from the FSS server room, serves as a place of detention for those who were abducted by the occupying forces from the south — Kherson Oblast and Zaporizhzhia.

«Interrogations are conducted by FSS officials from Russia, not from Crimea. They change rotations. There is a polygraph. Beatings I have no information about the current. Electricity is used in pre-trial detention centers. If a person needs to be electrocuted for a false confession, he is transferred from the basement to the pre-trial detention center. There are three pre-trial detention centers in Simferopol, the fourth is under construction. Before the full-scale invasion, there was one pre-trial detention center on the peninsula,» writes Hanna Mamonova.

The journalist does not know whether Ihor Kolykhaiev was tortured in captivity.

«I have no evidence that the mayor is being tortured in the literal sense — beatings, electric shocks. But any captivity is always abuse. And a crime,» she added.

What happened to the mayor of Kherson Ihor Kolykhaiev?

On April 25, Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev reported that armed men entered the building of the Kherson City Council, took the keys, and changed the council's security to their own. The next day, the employees were introduced to the «new head of the administration» and offered to cooperate with the occupiers. Then he declared that he refused the offer, but at the same time he remained to live in Kherson.

There was no news about him since June 28, 2022. In September 2023, the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed his status as a prisoner of war.

At the beginning of 2024, the son of the mayor of Kherson, Sviatoslav Kolykhaiev, wrote an appeal to the President of Ukraine and called to take personal control over the issue of his father's release from captivity.

The boy emphasized that the International Committee of the Red Cross has already officially included his father in the list of prisoners, and Ukraine is «simply silent.» He was outraged by the fact that the mayor of a city of regional significance, a representative of the Ukrainian government and local self-government bodies, is still in captivity.