Donbas hostages savagely tortured for ‘confessions’ in 2019 sentenced in Russia to 24 years

The Southern District Military Court in Rostov has passed sentences of 23 and 24 years against three Ukrainians, abducted in Donetsk oblast six years ago when Russia was still claiming that its aggression against Ukraine was a ‘Ukrainian civil war’ and Moscow a mere ‘observer’.  The sentences are almost certainly based solely on ‘confessions’ extracted through torture from Andriy Harrius, Yuriy Ivanov and Stanislav Surovtsev.

Russia’s application of its repressive legislation on occupied territory and deportation of Ukrainians to Russia are always in violation of international law.  Here it is also claiming jurisdiction over alleged ‘crimes’ or plans to commit such in a fake ‘Donetsk people’s republics’ which Russia itself had not recognized.  Worth noting that, although Russia’s FSB regularly use torture and fabricate charges in Russia, the level of lawlessness is significantly higher in all areas of Ukraine under Russian occupation.  In 2021, occupied Crimea and Donbas were found to be close in terms of rule of law to North Korea, and the situation in 2025 is even worse.

It was claimed that in 2015 Yuriy Ivanov had met a Ukrainian Security Service operative.  The latter, according to the aggressor state’s ‘investigators’, had “proposed that he work with him in order to carry out terrorist activities on the territory of DPR’. Ivanov was supposed to have agreed to join and participate in a so-called ‘terrorist organization’ and to recruit others who would also carry out the SBU instructions.  Enter Andriy Harrius and Stanislav Surovtsev who, according to this version, were Ivanov’s acquaintances.   They are claimed to have undergone training in government-controlled Ukraine on using explosives, etc. and to have caused a number of explosions on territory under the control of ‘DPR’ from 2016 to 2018.   

The charges were of ‘involvement in a terrorist organization’ (Article 205.4 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code); of ‘undergoing training to commit terrorist activities’ (Article 205.3; numerous episodes of ‘‘terrorist acts’ (Articles 30 § 3 and 205 § 2a; and of explosives charges under Article 222 § 3. 

The sentences announced on 23 April 2025 were horrific, with Yuriy Ivanov and Stanislav Surovtsev sentenced to 24 years’ maximum-security imprisonment and also fined 300 thousand roubles.  Andriy Harrius’ sentence was one year less, at 23 years, but with the same fine.  The sentences were passed by ‘judge’ Roman Viktorovich Saprunov, an individual who regularly passes huge sentences against recognized Crimean Tatar and other Ukrainian political prisoners.

These sentences can still be appealed, although, at least with respect to Russia’s political trials of Ukrainians, the Vlasikha military court of appeal invariably upholds sentences, however flawed.  In this case, the men are claimed to have partially admitted ‘guilt’ during court hearings.

This is a telling detail given that the only evidence to back the charges against Andriy Harrius; Yuriy Ivanov and Stanislav Surovshev in 2019 came from videoed ‘confessions’ which the men almost certainly gave under torture while held incommunicado, without independent lawyers.   As reported earlier, a rather incriminating detail is the totally grotesque claim that the men had not only been planning acts of sabotage on the instructions of Ukraine’s SBU, but that they had been trained for such ‘sabotage’ by instructors from the USA and Canada’. Another ‘giveaway’ sign that the men were repeating what they were told to say is that they claim that they acted purely on promises of money and that they had not even seen much of the latter.

The only information not from Russian propaganda sources is about Andriy Harrius, who is 36 and a former police driver.  He was seized by ‘DPR’ militants on 11 December 2018 just days before the birth of his second daughter.  He had moved from his native Krymychna (near Makiivka) after the Russian/Russian-controlled militants seized control, however later moved back to Krymychna as it was difficult to find work to support his growing family.

It was in Krymychna that Harrius disappeared on 11 December 2018.  He was brought back to their home for a search the following day and, according to his wife, Victoria, had obviously been beaten and could scarcely speak. Harrius’ captors turned the place upside down, stole whatever they could find of any value, and took Harrius away again.  Victoria left occupied Donbas immediately, giving birth in the train on the way to Lviv.

Harrius had been held prisoner for almost two months when the so-called ‘DPR police’ claimed to have arrested three men accused of carrying out several acts of terrorism and sabotage. There was wide coverage of these supposed ‘arrests’, together with the claims about American and Canadian instructors, in Russian state media.