Five Ukrainian lads from occupied Melitopol were seized by the Russians in the second half of 2023, with only three of the boys surviving to their so-called ‘trial’. Danylo Dakhov and Pavlo Hrymak, both of whom were just 16, died in Russian captivity, almost certainly as a result of torture. Russia’s notorious Southern District Military Court has now sentenced Viktor Azarovsky, who was 16 when taken prisoner, to eight and a half years’ imprisonment, Oleh Shokol, who had just turned 17 to seven and a half years; and Denys Vasylyk (16 in 2023) to seven years. The sentences are in medium-security prison colonies, with Viktor also fined 40 thousand roubles; Oleh and Denys – 25 thousand. According to Azarovsky’s lawyer, Kateryna Bobrovska, there was no evidence to back the charges against the boys, who were still at school, aside from ‘confessions’ extracted through torture. “They were tortured, forced into telling a story that didn’t happen, accused of an attempt to blow up a Russian Federation police lieutenant and place explosives on railway tracks,” she says.
Russian media first published reports, together with a propaganda video, about the supposed arrest of three “underage saboteurs, planning terrorist attacks” on occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia oblast on 21 December 2021. It was claimed that the three lads, whose names and ages were not revealed, were members of a sabotage group called ‘Black Sabotage’ and that they had, on instructions from their Ukrainian ‘sixers’, received Russian passports back in 2022. They had, supposedly, adopted an active pro-Russian position, while passing on intelligence information about Russian military personal and the Russian-installed leadership to Ukraine’s Security Service [SBU]. The report asserted that they had “organized several terrorist attacks” involving attempts on the life of so-called officials, i.e. those Russians or local collaborators installed by the invading state. In December 2022, they had also purportedly passed on to Ukraine’s Armed Forces the coordinates of “a restaurant and hotel complex called Hunter’s Hall”. This had then, allegedly, become the target of a missile strike, supposedly killing “two civilians” and injured three others. Such claims of “civilian targets” are standard and false. The hotel and restaurant complex was, in fact, being used as a military base by a unit of the 19th motor rifle division from North Ossetia and was an entirely legitimate military target.
On that first propaganda video, a young man (with face obscured) was asked what he had done and said that he had been instructed to look for military technology and pass on information about it. It was clear from the clothing and surrounding landscape that the video had been made much earlier. There were other telltale indications that the whole scene was staged, such as the shots of the lads’ alleged explosives shown lying on Ukrainian flags. A later video apparently showed two young lads, with one of them ‘admitting’ to placing explosives. There is ample testimony, either from former prisoner of war of political prisoners who have been released, or those who have finally received access to an independent lawyer, that all such ‘confessions’ are extracted through torture. In many cases, the victims are forced to learn ‘their lines’ off my heart, and sometimes even record several different versions.
There are witnesses who saw Victor Azarovsky soon after he was seized by men in masks or balaclavas outside his home in Melitopol on 31 October 2023 and taken away. He looked drained, terrified, and was bruised and had other marks from beating. He and the other two lads, who were seized a day or two earlier, have been imprisoned ever since, first on occupied territory, and now in one of the most notorious of Russia’s remand prisons, SIZO No. 2 in Taganrog (the one in which 27-year-old journalist Victoria Roshchyna was held and tortured until days before her death in 2024).
The case against the three young men was passed to the Southern District Military Court on 11 November 2024, with the above sentences passed on 19 March 2026 by ‘judge’ Denis Vitalievich Vovchenko.
Judging by the court’s report, the claim about helping Ukraine’s Army target the supposed restaurant complex that was, in fact, being used as a military base, does not appear in the final indictment. Each of the young men faced a number of charges, under Russia’s criminal code. They were: ‘involvement in a terrorist organization’, under Article 205.4 § 2; ‘training in terrorist activities’ (Article 205.3); ‘planning a terrorist attack’ under Article 205 § 3b; and various explosives and weapons charges (Article 223.1 and others.).
A lot of words are expended on separate allegations, but they largely boil down to alleged surveillance of legitimate targets; planned attempts on the life of equally legitimate targets such as the occupation deputy head of the Melitopol ‘police’.
There were numerous questions that Vovchenko should have asked. He did not and simply found the three young men, who were still children when abducted in October 2023, ‘guilty’.
Danylo Dakhov and Pavlo Hrymak
The two Melitopol schoolboys were both just 16 and hoping to go on to university when they were seized by the Russians in August 2023. Russia’s information blockade and the danger people face if they talk to independent journalists meant that it was two years later before it became known that they had died / been killed in Russian captivity. This was first reported by Mariana Betsa, Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister in her address to the UN General Assembly on 4 September 2025 (around 11.00 here). A great deal remains unclear, although Danylo and Pavlo were seemingly also accused of involvement in ‘Black Sabotage’. It is possible that the Russians intended to accuse them of helping to target the military base at ‘Hunter’s Hall’.
Both lads held a clear civic position and took part in various patriotic events, in cleaning up the forest and planting trees. They participated in events to honour the victims of Holodomor, the manmade Famine of 1932-33 [and other such artificial famines) and marking other national holidays.
There are certainly partisans on all occupied Ukrainian territory, as well as a huge number of Ukrainians whose opposition to Russian occupation and pronounced pro-Ukrainian position mean that they are, by definition, at risk. There is, however, no evidence of a ‘Black Sabotage’ group, involving Melitopol minors, nor of any ‘terrorist attacks’ aside from videoed ‘confessions’ given by lads who were totally at the mercy of their Russian captors.
There seems to have been one such video with Danylo Dakhov and Pavlo Hrymak who were clearly repeating what they had been told to say. Nothing more was known until Danylo and Pavlo’s parents were told in May 2024 that their sons had died, with the Russians claiming that they had been killed when their homemade explosive device exploded while involved in a partisan operation. This was a foul lie, given that the boys had been taken prisoner some ten months earlier, with Suspilne later reporting that they had been tortured to death in April 2024. As was the case with 16-year-old Tihran Ohannisian and Mykyta Khanharov, who were killed in Berdiansk on 24 June 2023, the Russians did not return the boys’ bodies.
