Polish man tortured to death in Russia after visiting occupied Ukrainian land to see whether war is real
It has emerged that a Polish man likely died due to torture in the Russian city of Taganrog in 2023 after he travelled to Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia to check in person whether the war was ongoing.
Source: Polish outlet Gazeta Wyborcza, citing the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and eyewitness testimony
Details: The man in question, Krzysztof Galos from Kraków, crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border in mid-April 2023 and subsequently travelled to occupied territories, the journalists have established.
Galos was reportedly sceptical about media reports about the war and decided to verify everything for himself.
Surveillance cameras last recorded his car near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is under Russian occupation. After that, Russians detained Galos at a checkpoint.
Sources told Memorial that Galos had been taken to pre-trial detention centre No. 2 in Taganrog, where Ukrainian prisoners of war are also held.
After contact with Galos was lost, his family filed a missing-person report with the police. His fate remained unknown for an extended period.
In January 2025, Memorial, Russia's most well-known independent human rights organisation, released a report titled Ukraine: war crimes of Russian aggressors.
They documented systematic torture in occupied territories and in Russia, particularly targeting foreign nationals. Among the victims was a Polish citizen who died in Taganrog.
One respondent noted that Krzysztof said he "went travelling around Ukraine to see what was going on there, but took a wrong turn and drove up to a checkpoint of Russian soldiers".
Memorial reports that the man was regularly beaten, especially for not speaking Russian and for Poland's support of Ukraine.
During one inspection, guards beat him so severely that his legs turned blue and began to fail. Krzysztof Galos died in mid-June 2023.
Afterwards, his cellmates were forced to write statements claiming that detention centre staff "did not use" violence against him and that there had been no conflicts in the cell.
Witnesses said after this incident, guards began to beat prisoners slightly less often, but significantly intensified so-called "sports" punishments. Captives were forced to do 200 squats and 100 press-ups, and if the guards considered them poorly executed, the entire cell was punished with more beatings and added exercises.
The journalists have reported that Russia did not inform Poland about the death of its citizen. Pawel, a son of Galos, still does not know the circumstances of his father's death or the location of his body.
He contacted Russia's Ministry of Justice and the prosecutor's office, demanding information, and communicated with Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the country's president and the embassies of Ukraine and Russia.
So far, the family has received responses only from Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Border Guard. The ministry said that after Gazeta Wyborcza published its initial reports on the matter, Poland's embassy in Moscow sent a diplomatic note to Russia's Foreign Ministry.
Background:
- Pre-trial detention centre No. 2 in Taganrog is considered one of the most brutal places of imprisonment where Russia holds Ukrainians. Journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who was abducted while working in occupied territories in August 2023, was previously held and tortured in this detention centre. Her death became known in October 2024.
- Roshchyna's body, with signs of torture and missing some organs, was brought back only during an exchange on 14 February 2025. The case regarding the journalist's disappearance was reclassified as a war crime combined with premeditated murder.
- The National Police reported that a notice of suspicion had been served on the former head of pre-trial detention centre No. 2 in Taganrog, who personally ordered Roshchyna to be tortured. Later, Slidstvo.Info journalists learned that Viktoriia Roshchyna died on 19 September 2024 in a detention centre in the city of Kizel, Perm Krai, Russia.
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