The Security Service has documented new crimes by Volodymyr Saldo, the head of the Russian occupation administration on the left bank of the Kherson region. He and two accomplices are implicated in the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children after the seizure of the regional centre.
This is stated in an SBU press release.
The investigation found that on 7 October 2022 the suspects organised the illegal removal of students from the Kherson Vocational Shipbuilding Lyceum to so-called “sanatoriums” in temporarily occupied Crimea. The students were first taken by bus to the river port and from there by boats to the left bank, where additional transport was waiting to take them on to the peninsula.
To organise the illegal removal, Saldo enlisted Viktor Loginov, a former serviceman in the Russian army who, at the time of the crime, held the “post of deputy director of the lyceum”. To conceal the illegal transfer of the children, he personally entered false information into the school’s records.
The second accomplice, Mykola Dolzhenko, a teacher at the lyceum, which had been seized at the time, accompanied the students along the entire route to Crimea.
By doing so, the suspects violated Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in time of war, which prohibits the forcible transfer of protected persons from occupied territory.
On the basis of the evidence collected, investigators from the Security Service issued in absentia suspicion notices to Saldo and his two accomplices under Part 2 of Article 28 and Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (war crimes committed by a group of persons acting in prior conspiracy).
As the perpetrators are hiding in the temporarily occupied part of Ukraine, comprehensive measures are under way to bring them to justice.
- In another criminal case based on SBU materials, Saldo, the occupation-appointed head of the Kherson region, was convicted in absentia and sentenced to 15 years in prison for high treason.
- The investigation was conducted by investigators from the Main Investigative Department under the procedural supervision of the Office of the Prosecutor General.