Nov. 22, 2025, 8:21 p.m.
(Ihor Guryakov. PHOTO: MIPL)
The former head of the Kherson pre-trial detention center, Ihor Guryakov, is on trial for high treason. The State Bureau of Investigation(SBI ) detained him on suspicion of collaborating with the enemy and "donating" to the institution. At the same time, he is recognized as a victim in the case of torture by the Russian military and denies his guilt, disagreeing with the prosecution. The occupiers abducted him and kept him in a torture chamber for several days. Now the judges of the Khadzhibeysky District Court of Odesa will have to find out who is in front of them.
Here are the details of the case, which is still being heard.
At the end of August 2023, the SBU opened a criminal investigation into the violation of the customs of war. According to the investigation, on May 11, 2022, armed Russian soldiers took Guryakov and Usachev (his deputy), threatening them with physical force. First, they were taken to the military commander's office, and later the men were placed in a cell in the basement of the Kherson Court of Appeal. The occupiers set up a torture chamber there.
According to the investigation, Guryakov and Usachov were interrogated by four Russian soldiers for three days. The men were fixed in one position and kept there for over an hour. The interrogation was accompanied by constant beatings with hands and feet all over the body, and the use of electric shocks. They were also threatened with death.
Igor Guryakov. Photo: MIPL
Currently, two occupants identified by the SBU, who were involved in the abduction and torture of Guryakov and others, Colonel Viktor Bedryk, the pseudo-commander of the Kherson region, and his subordinate Oleksandr Chichkan, are being tried in absentia in Kherson.
At the end of November 2022, SBI officers detained the then-acting head of the Kherson Detention Center, Ihor Huryakov, his deputy, Yevhen Usachov, and an operative. According to the investigation, after the Russian invasion, these SIZO employees went over to the enemy and were appointed to positions in an illegally created body.
The SBI claims that the defendants carried out criminal orders of the occupiers and held Kherson activists in the detention center.
Photo: SBI
The SBI also noted that the former head of the pre-trial detention center became a "hero" of the propagandists' information provocation, calling for disobeying the orders of the Ukrainian authorities and cooperating with the enemy.
In January 2023, separate indictments against Guryakov and Usachov were sent to court. "The former management of the Kherson pre-trial detention center, who 'donated' the institution to the occupiers, will be tried," the SBI official website wrote.
At one of the hearings, Guryakov's defense lawyers emphasized that the occupation authorities tortured him and used psychological pressure against him, including threatening him and his family with physical violence.
Igor Guryakov himself denies the charges of treason. He says that he stayed in Kherson and continued to work in his position until mid-May 2022, as he could not leave the convicts and subordinates who were not evacuated by the leadership.
Igor Guryakov's case was transferred to the Khadzhibeysky District Court of Odesa at the end of January 2023. The panel of judges will hear the parties, take into account the testimony of witnesses, examine the evidence and determine whether Igor Guryakov betrayed his oath and voluntarily went over to the enemy.
If proven guilty, the man faces 15 years in prison or life imprisonment. Pending the verdict, the former head of the Kherson SIZO is being held in the Odesa pre-trial detention center.
The case has been in trial for several years. Witnesses for the prosecution have already testified. In the summer of 2025, the defense witnesses were supposed to start testifying. Due to the shelling of Kherson, the hearing was repeatedly postponed - the witnesses had to be connected from the local court building. Prosecutors opposed the videoconference from the witnesses' homes, saying that it was impossible to verify their identity and the absence of strangers nearby.
On September 24, the court proceeded to question the defense witnesses who had come to Odesa for the hearing.
The first to testify was a man who worked in the Kherson pre-trial detention center. On February 23, 2022, he was on duty in the detention center. At 5 a.m. the next morning, he received a call from a law enforcement friend: a full-scale invasion had begun. The pre-trial detention center gathered the staff on the alert.
"There were questions about how we would continue to serve. We gathered in the lobby. Guryakov said we were working under Ukrainian law. "And if they come in, what will we do?" He answered: "Everyone has their own position, their own head. If someone comes in, I put the key in and turn around, and the others do what they want," the witness said.
In early April 2022, the man asked Guryakov for a few days to take his family out of Kherson to a safe place. He himself then returned back.
"During this time, when we were on duty, we wrote letters to all the authorities: to Malyuska and Zaluzhny," the witness said, showing the original documents, "They asked what we should do, what our plan of action was, because we still had the convicts and weapons. In fact, we had the opportunity to evacuate the convicts and take the weapons."
On May 11, 2022, he went to the office of Igor Guryakov, but he was not there. In the office of his deputy, Yevhen Usachov, there were both of them and two other prisoners, the so-called "lookouts".
"I was waiting outside the door. After they left, I went in. I saw that Guryakov was sitting there looking worried. I asked him what was wrong. He said that this morning the occupation authorities came to ten (colony no. 10 - ed.). They held a meeting there. Tomorrow they will visit us. The convicts from there called our prisoners and passed this information on. I asked what the two prisoners were doing here. They told the warden that there was an hour to release everyone. The prisoners were worried that they would be shot," the witness said.
Ihor Guryakov, Photo: Yulia Khymerik
According to him, Igor Guryakov called the duty officer and ordered to bring out the personnel with weapons, to place them around the perimeter of the isolation ward. The witness was placed at the first checkpoint.
"We asked what to do if the occupiers came. Guryakov answered: "We keep our weapons in accordance with the current legislation," the witness said.
About 50 minutes later, the staff of the detention center saw on the surveillance cameras how Yevhen Sobolev, the head of colony No. 90, who had cooperated with the occupiers, arrived at the gate.
"Sobolev came in and said: 'Report'. And Guryakov replied: "Who are you? I am the head of the pre-trial detention center, and you are the head of the 90th colony," the witness said. "Sobolev asked, 'What is going on here, the occupation authorities, the Russian military will come and restore order. Guryakov replied, 'Here are the keys, it's without me'.
The witness said that about 15 minutes after Guryakov left, Russian soldiers in ZILs and Ural trucks with "zetks" began to arrive at the institution. They surrounded the detention center.
"I heard a shot and the sound of a grenade. After that, I told the guard: "Open the gate, my service is over". She opened the gate and I went out. There is a building near the SIZO. I went in and saw about 20 masked Russian invaders in the pre-trial detention center. Guryakov was standing near the church, surrounded, next to Sobolev. Two convicts - the watchers - were taken out. Guryakov was also taken out. A bus pulled up. I heard: "Who is Usachev?". The car slammed shut. I spent the night in the building and left," the witness said.
After that, the man decided to go to the territory controlled by Ukraine. From a safe place, he saw a video featuring Guryakov on the Internet. On that day, May 11, the occupiers took him and Usachov to a torture chamber.
"He did not look like himself, it was not him, but a morally broken person," the witness said.
Sometime in early June, Guryakov called him several times and asked him to call the head of the security department. He was wanted by the occupiers and Guryakov wanted to warn him about it.
"Sometime in June 2022, I was appointed acting head of the pre-trial detention center. I called everyone to find out whether they were occupiers or not, to pay or not to pay salaries," the witness explained, "And Guryakov called me: "If I call someone and ask them to come to work, they shouldn't agree, because I have people standing over me."
After the de-occupation of Kherson, the witness returned to the location of the institution. The day before, he received a short message from Guryakov: "Glory to Ukraine. I am here. We are waiting".
Subsequently, the witness was visited by SBU officers in the detention center and asked for the contacts of Guryakov and Usachev. The witness provided their addresses. But there was no one there, so the officers returned. The man had to go with them in a minibus with the Alpha special forces.
"Either Guryakov or Usachev called me. He asked: "Where are you?". I said: "We are looking for you," the witness said.
Guryakov told me his location and the SBU officers went there. After a while, the man saw the defendant on the street near the store where the SBU officers were. Later, the witness came across a video on the Internet with the detention of Guryakov and other detention center employees.
One of the lawyers asked the witness if Guryakov had encouraged the staff of the Kherson pre-trial detention center or the prisoners to cooperate with the occupiers?
"There was no such thing. I will even say more. Guryakov gave the command to distribute bread and chickens to people. A Tiger came to the gate, the Russian military brought someone. Guryakov came out to them and said that they were not accepting anyone," the man said.
"Please tell me, you said that on May 11, Guryakov was put in a car and taken away. Do you know what happened to Guryakov?" the lawyer asked.
"I saw a video in the media where he looked unnatural. I was told by the employees who stayed in Kherson that they saw them after they were released. Both Guryakov and Usachev were blue. Usachev's hands were blue from the irons. Guryakov was holding his ribs somewhere".
The witness named his colleagues who saw this.
"Do you know the facts that Guryakov committed any actions to the detriment of our state, sovereignty, territorial integrity or somehow helped the occupation authorities in the capture of Kherson or the establishment of a criminal government in Kherson?" the lawyer asked.
"No, I did not," the witness replied.
The lawyer also asked whether he knew one of the prosecution witnesses, a pre-trial detainee who had already testified.
"I remember that he was conflicted. He was constantly locked up somewhere. He constantly had conflicts with his cellmates. I remember we were constantly hiding him," the man said.
The prosecutor asked the witness about the date when Guryakov handed over the keys to the pre-trial detention center. He replied that it was in May, around May 11, 2022.
Photo: Yulia Khymerik
The next witness to be interrogated was the second defense witness, who worked in the Kherson pre-trial detention center from 2010 to 2022. On the first day of the full-scale invasion, they were constantly in the institution and were on duty in an enhanced mode. Guryakov gathered all the managers and informed them that they were preparing for evacuation. According to the woman, they drew up an action plan, and everyone was involved in their duties. In particular, they formed the lists of convicts for evacuation. They were ready by 13:00.
"I talked to the Department for Control over the Execution of Court Decisions in Odesa, as we were directly subordinate to them. We told them that we were ready for evacuation and they replied: unfortunately, the issue of evacuation is no longer on the agenda, as there are no law enforcement agencies in Kherson," the witness said.
She also added that the service responsible for escorting convicts had left the city. The management of the Kherson pre-trial detention center gathered again in the head's office.
"Guryakov voiced his strong pro-Ukrainian position. He said that he would personally work in the institution until we can work without violating our oath to the people of Ukraine. Each chief expressed a pro-Ukrainian position and we started working in this mode," the witness said.
She added that the institution continued to work under Ukrainian law and submitted reports to the department in Odesa.
"We constantly wrote letters to the department, to the President's Office, we also wrote to the Red Cross. We asked: "Please provide us with an explanation of further actions, since Kherson is occupied and we need such an algorithm of actions, because we have never had such situations before. Please explain our actions so that we do not violate the law. Unfortunately, we did not receive an explanation and continued to work in this mode until May 11, 2022," the witness said.
On that day, the woman was at home when a colleague called her and said that the institution had been seized by armed occupiers. Guryakov and Usachov were taken away from the territory of the detention center in handcuffs.
"Yevgeniy Sobolev, who introduced himself as a representative of the occupation authorities, is waiting for the staff tomorrow at 9:00. I wrote to all my subordinate specialists, because I knew their pro-Ukrainian position, I wrote to everyone not to come to work tomorrow, because there is a threat to their lives. And none of us went to work," the woman said.
Later, they left the city.
The woman heard from her colleagues that Guryakov and Usachov were held in a torture chamber in the Kherson Court of Appeal and tortured. And they were accompanied to the institution by armed Russian soldiers.
The prosecutor clarified when the witness had seen the defendant after the de-occupation and whether she had spoken to him then. The second prosecutor asked whether the employees were informed about the downtime and that they could not work during the occupation. The woman replied that the downtime was introduced after she left Kherson, after mid-May 2022.
The next meeting was scheduled for November 10. However, due to the constant announcements of air alert, the meeting did not take place.
This journalistic material was created as part of the project "Important Information for Local Communities in Ukraine" implemented by Fondation Hirondelle and IRMI with the support of Swiss Solidarity. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.
Юлія Химерик