On 1 December 2025, masked officials of Checheliv District Recruitment Office in Dnipro seized 40-year-old Pentecostal conscientious objector Yevhen Nabraklo. They transferred him to the Skelya Assault Regiment in Dnipropetrovsk Region, which is notorious for the high rate of non-combat deaths. They later took him to a military training unit in Rivne Region. He died in a Rivne hospital on 1 January 2026 of "acute purulent bacterial meningitis", according to the death certificate.

"Death is related to military service. Death is not related to the defence of the Motherland," the official notification to the family (seen by Forum 18) notes. The website of Pokrov Council lists Nabraklo in the section "They gave their lives for Ukraine". About his death it merely states that "his heart stopped beating". An accompanying image claims in the caption: "He died on 1 January 2026 defending his native land from Russian occupiers" (see below).

Nabraklo's death remains unexplained. "He was in a terrible state when we saw the body in the morgue," a family member told Forum 18. "We don't know how he died – they can write whatever they like on the death certificate" (see below).

Nabraklo's body showed signs that he was emaciated at the time of his death. According to photographs of the front of the body seen by Forum 18, he did not appear to have visible wounds. "I don't know if he was killed or not properly looked after," the family member told Forum 18. "I hope the investigation will find the answer" (see below).

Nabraklo's pastor, Vitalii Bezkrovnyi of Grace Pentecostal Church in Dnipro, remains disturbed by his death. "He didn't get medical attention. In the 21st century," he told Forum 18, "they shouldn't act like this. There should be a system to prevent this" (see below).

Yevhenii Sereda, an investigator from Rivne City Police, is investigating the circumstances of Nabraklo's death. "We are conducting a pre-trial investigation, establishing the cause of his death, verifying all the factors that led to the death of Yevhen Nabraklo," he told Forum 18. "We are considering all the circumstances related to his death, which is indicated in the medical certificate of death." He said it was difficult to say how long the investigation would take (see below).

Forum 18 asked the Military Ombudsperson's Office in Kyiv what it is doing to investigate Nabraklo's death and other such deaths in military hands and prevent their occurrence. "The Office of the Military Ombudsman has not received any complaints concerning Yevhen Nabraklo," it responded. "Conducting pre-trial investigations does not fall within the powers of the Office of the Military Ombudsman." It added that "if signs of a criminal offence are identified during the consideration of a complaint, the relevant law enforcement authorities shall be notified thereof without delay in accordance with the procedure established by law" (see below).

Pastor Bezkrovnyi complains about Nabraklo's forced recruitment. "This is a question of freedom of religion or belief," he told Forum 18. "Yevhen wasn't a military man and because of his religious convictions didn't want to fight. We had given him a document stating that he was a church member and that he was also caring for his blind mother" (see below).

A member of Nabraklo's family also insists that he had conscientious reasons not to take up weapons. "He was a believer for more than ten years," the relative told Forum 18. "He was against taking up arms" (see below).

Officials insist that even the limited alternative service allowed in peacetime does not exist during wartime. Prosecutors have launched more than a thousand criminal cases to punish conscientious objectors whose applications for alternative civilian service have been rejected. About 500 cases are believed to have already reached court. More than 30 conscientious objectors have been jailed, with others handed lesser sentences. Criminal trials continue (see below).

The United Nations (UN) Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine spoke for a March report to conscientious objectors forcibly taken to military units. "They reported that in the military camps they had been subjected to punishment and psychological pressure, such as mock executions, confinement for long periods in a pit dug in the ground, including in winter; threats of sexual violence; and denial of food" (see below).

Nabraklo's death came 11 weeks before the death at Skelya Assault Regiment of 50-year-old Baptist conscientious objector Dmytro Koval. His death certificate recorded the cause as "pulmonary-cardiac insufficiency, unspecified". It said he had died "in a car". When returned to his family, his body showed signs of brutal treatment (see below).

Between March and April, three Jehovah's Witnesses – Serhiy Batiuzhenko, Eduard Martens and Ruslan Korobeinyk, all of them in their early fifties - were tortured at the same army training unit near Pidlisne, Dnipropetrovsk Region, for refusing military service as conscientious objectors. A military instructor beat them unconscious, while other soldiers mocked their faith, and withheld medical care (see below).

The Third Investigation Department in Dnipro began investigating the torture of the three men. The case currently remains at the pre-trial investigation stage. "The investigation identified the person who directly inflicted the physical injuries," Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18. "He was subsequently deployed to the frontline and, following a battle, was officially reported missing. It remains doubtful whether notices of suspicion will be issued to other persons who have been involved in the ill-treatment" (see below).

Jehovah's Witnesses submitted a request to additionally qualify the acts as torture, but received no official response. "This qualification does not appear to have been formally added to the case," Jehovah's Witnesses noted (see below).

The Third Investigation Department has not responded to Forum 18's earlier questions on their investigation (see below).

Severe human rights violations in Russian-occupied Ukraine

Serious violations of freedom of religion and belief and other human rights take place within all the Ukrainian territory Russia has illegally occupied.

No alternative civilian service in wartime

After Russia's renewed invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, Ukraine declared a state of martial law. All men between the ages of 27 (later reduced to 25) and 60 were deemed eligible for call-up in a general mobilisation and were banned from leaving the country. Ukraine's Defence Ministry insists that even the limited alternative civilian service allowed in peacetime does not exist during wartime.

Many conscientious objectors have faced prosecution since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 after Recruitment Offices rejected their applications on grounds of conscience for alternative civilian service. They include Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Baptists, Orthodox and others.

As of July 2026, Prosecutors had launched more than a thousand criminal cases to punish conscientious objectors whose applications for alternative service have been rejected. About 500 cases were believed to have already reached court. In cases known to Forum 18, 30 conscientious objectors were in jail serving sentences, with a further 7 awaiting appeals. Courts handed 11 conscientious objectors probation or restricted freedom sentences. Courts were hearing at least 15 new cases, while 21 conscientious objectors were known to be in pre-trial detention.

Concerns over forcibly mobilised conscientious objectors

Recruitment Offices have forcibly taken hundreds of conscientious objectors aged from their twenties to their late fifties to military bases against their will. There they often face pressure and torture. Of those known to have been held in July 2026, about 300 were Seventh-day Adventists, while 50 were Council of Churches Baptists.

The United Nations (UN) Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has renewed earlier UN concern about the lack of the possibility of conducting alternative civilian service at a time of war. It has also expressed concern about violence against conscientious objectors who have been forcibly taken to military bases. It raised these concerns in a report to the UN Human Rights Council (A/HRC/61/61) made public on 9 March 2026.

The Commission interviewed "men who were active members of four different religious groups long before the onset of the full-scale invasion. All of them have refused to carry out a military activity and have expressed readiness to carry out alternative civil service."

"Conscientious objectors interviewed reported that regardless of their express refusal to carry out any military activity, they had been taken by force to a territorial centre for recruitment and further to a military camp," the UN Commission noted.

"Several among them experienced or witnessed physical violence, including beatings by territorial centre for recruitment staff and military personnel. They reported that in the military camps they had been subjected to punishment and psychological pressure, such as mock executions, confinement for long periods in a pit dug in the ground, including in winter; threats of sexual violence; and denial of food."

Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale war on Ukraine, Recruitment Offices have been a focus of concern.

The Parliamentary Human Rights Commissioner (Ombudsperson) Dmytro Lubinets has admitted problems in the way Recruitment Offices seize men to be mobilised. However, he has made only passing reference to the torture of conscientious objectors, as well as conscripts, once in military units.

"Violations of rights are reported in 1,669 appeals from individuals who, despite their religious convictions, were sent to military units, contrary to Article 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which provides grounds for replacing military duty with alternative (non-military) service," Lubinets wrote in his report for 2025.

Yurii Sheliazhenko of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement complained in a 12 June 2026 article that "the Ombudsman's report ignores a problem of torture and cruel treatment of conscientious objectors and other conscripts".

Nabraklo: Regularly attended church

Yevhen Mykhailovych Nabraklo (born 10 January 1985) grew up in a large family in Krasnoarmiisk (now Pokrovsk) in Donetsk Region. After he turned 18 in the early 2000s, he was never called up for military service, his family told Forum 18. He worked as a fork-lift driver. He also looked after his mother Antonina, who in later life was blind and paralysed.

Nabraklo regularly attended Grace Pentecostal Church in the town of Pokrovsk from the late 2010s, the Church's pastor Vitalii Bezkrovnyi told Forum 18 on 10 August 2026. "We had to evacuate him and his mother from Pokrovsk on 10 December 2024," he added. After an assault that began in mid-2024, Russian forces had fully seized the town by early 2026.

Grace Pentecostal Church re-established itself in the city of Dnipro, capital of Dnipropetrovsk Region.

Nabraklo: Seized by men in masks

On 1 December 2025, officials of Checheliv District Recruitment Office in Dnipro seized Yevhen Nabraklo. They took him first to the local Recruitment Centre. "Yevhen called me to say he had been forcibly recruited by men in masks," Pastor Vitalii Bezkrovnyi told Forum 18. After that call, the pastor had no further communication from Nabraklo.

Pastor Bezkrovnyi complains about the forced recruitment of conscientious objector Nabraklo. "This is a question of freedom of religion or belief," he told Forum 18. "Yevhen wasn't a military man and because of his religious convictions didn't want to fight. We had given him a document stating that he was a church member and that he was also caring for his blind mother."

A member of Nabraklo's family also insists that he had conscientious reasons not to take up weapons. "He was a believer for more than ten years," the relative told Forum 18. "He was against taking up arms."

The family heard through friends that the Recruitment Office had seized Nabraklo. "We phoned there but they said they had no information about him. We wanted to resolve this peacefully."

Nabraklo: Officials take him to military units

It appears that officials initially took Yevhen Nabraklo to the 425th Assault Regiment Skelya (A4862) in Dnipropetrovsk Region. This unit is notorious for the high rate of non-combat deaths.

Journalist Kateryna Likhohliad investigated the high death rate at the Skelya unit. She found 26 non-combat deaths over a six-month period from late 2025, with many of those men dying within a month of arrival, she wrote on 23 June 2026 on the Babel news website. Nabraklo's death was among a further seven deaths of those who had been at the base noted by Babel in a follow-up article on 7 July.

Among those who died in Skelya was another conscientious objector, Council of Churches Baptist Dmytro Koval. Recruitment Office officials seized the 50-year-old on 1 March. After rejecting his refusal of military service on grounds of conscience and request to perform an alternative civilian service, officials transferred him to the military. On 6 March, he arrived at the Skelya Assault Regiment. He died there on 21 March. His death certificate recorded the cause as "pulmonary-cardiac insufficiency, unspecified". It said he had died "in a car". When returned to his family, his body showed signs of brutal treatment.

At some point in December 2025, officials took Nabraklo from the Skelya unit to a military training unit in Rivne Region.

Nabraklo phoned family members several times in December 2025 – most recently on 26 December - while being held by the military. The family sent him medicines he requested.

In late December, officials took Nabaklo to Rivne Region's Semeniuk Clinical Hospital. Officials did not contact his family when they deemed he needed medical attention. "They had all our contacts when they took him to hospital," the family member told Forum 18.

Nabraklo: Dead within a month

According to officials, conscientious objector Yevhen Nabraklo died in Rivne Region's Semeniuk Clinical Hospital aged 40 on 1 January 2026, exactly one month after Recruitment Office officials seized him. The death certificate completed the following day (seen by Forum 18) was signed by Oleg Borodenko of Rivne Regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination. It listed the official cause of Nabraklo's death as "acute purulent bacterial meningitis".

Rivne Regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination did not respond to Forum 18's 25 August request for contact details for Borodenko.

Officials prepared written notification of Nabraklo's death to the family only on 6 January 2026, five days after his death. Nikopol District Recruitment Office in Pokrov wrote to Nabraklo's mother Antonina to inform her of her son's death. A family member – who heard about Nabraklo's death from a friend who worked as an official - later collected the letter on her behalf from the Recruitment Office.

The letter (seen by Forum 18) claimed that after being "accepted for military service", Nabraklo "took the military oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people, courageously fulfilling his military duty". It said he died on 1 January "while receiving inpatient treatment for an illness" in Rivne Region's Semeniuk Clinical Hospital. "Death is related to military service. Death is not related to the defence of the Motherland." The letter gave contact phone numbers for further questions.

Forum 18 has not been able to establish whether or not Nabraklo swore the military oath as officials claimed.

Officials returned Nabraklo's body to the family on 10 January 2026, what would have been his 41st birthday.

Nabraklo: Burial months before mother's death

Yevhen Nabraklo's family buried him on 13 January at the Central Cemetery in Pokrov in Dnipropetrovsk Region. "We would like to be able to put up a memorial for him, but do not have the money to do so," the relative told Forum 18.

"Yevhen's mother missed him and longed for him," Pastor Vitalii Bezkrovnyi told Forum 18. Antonina Nabraklo died on 21 May, "just four months after her son's death". She is buried close to her son.

Officials did not return Nabraklo's possessions to the family after his death. "He had his own Bible, his phone and the clothes he was standing up in when taken," the family member told Forum 18. "They seem to have disappeared."

The website of Pokrov Council lists Nabraklo in the section "They gave their lives for Ukraine". "During the full-scale invasion, on 1 December 2025, he joined the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," it notes. "He was appointed as the driver of the evacuation unit of the technical support platoon of the artillery division. On 1 January [2026], his heart stopped beating."

An accompanying image of Nabraklo on the website claims in the caption: "He died on 1 January 2026 defending his native land from Russian occupiers."

Nabraklo: "I don't know if he was killed or not properly looked after"

Yevhen Nabraklo's death remains unexplained. "He was in a terrible state when we saw the body in the morgue," a family member told Forum 18. "We don't know how he died – they can write whatever they like on the death certificate."

Nabraklo's body showed signs that he was emaciated at the time of his death. According to photographs of the front of the body seen by Forum 18, he did not appear to have visible wounds.

"I don't know if he was killed or not properly looked after," the family member told Forum 18. "I hope the investigation will find the answer."

Nabraklo's pastor, Vitalii Bezkrovnyi, remains disturbed by his death. "He didn't get medical attention. In the 21st century," he told Forum 18, "they shouldn't act like this. There should be a system to prevent this."

Nabraklo: "We are conducting a pre-trial investigation"

Yevhenii Sereda, an investigator from Rivne City Police, is investigating the circumstances of Yevhen Nabraklo's death. "We are conducting a pre-trial investigation, establishing the cause of his death, verifying all the factors that led to the death of Yevhen Nabraklo," he told Forum 18 from Rivne on 26 August. "We are considering all the circumstances related to his death, which is indicated in the medical certificate of death." He said it was difficult to say how long the investigation would take.

Forum 18 asked the Military Ombudsperson's Office in Kyiv for an interview about Nabraklo's death. It also asked what the Office is doing to make sure deaths in military hands (such as those of Nabraklo and Koval) are being investigated and to prevent them happening in future.

"The Office of the Military Ombudsman has not received any complaints concerning Yevhen Nabraklo," it responded on 26 August.

The Office stressed that under the Law establishing the post, "the Military Ombudsman exercises democratic civilian oversight over compliance with the rights of servicemen in connection with the performance of their military service duties. Conducting pre-trial investigations does not fall within the powers of the Office of the Military Ombudsman."

The Office added that, under the same Law, "if signs of a criminal offence are identified during the consideration of a complaint, the relevant law enforcement authorities shall be notified thereof without delay in accordance with the procedure established by law."

Viktor Yelensky, head of the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (DESS), did not respond to Forum 18's 25 August questions about any investigations into Nabraklo's death in January and the death of Dmytro Koval in March.

Koval: Materials sent to Police Main Directorate in Dnipropetrovsk Region

In response to Forum 18's earlier request for information about the death of Baptist conscientious objector Dmytro Koval on 21 March while held by the military, Iryna Mazur of the Military Ombudsperson's Office told Forum 18 on 1 July that it had received complaints from relatives and fellow church members about the "illegal mobilisation and death of serviceman Dmytro Koval".

Mazur said the Office had conducted an inspection. "Based on its results, a decision was made to forward the materials to the Main Directorate of the National Police in Dnipropetrovsk Region." She added that "if signs of a criminal offence are detected during the review of a complaint, the relevant law enforcement agencies are immediately notified in the manner prescribed by law. The Office of the Military Ombudsman is not a law enforcement agency and does not have the authority to conduct investigations."

Mazur said it was not able to investigate what happened to Koval during mobilisation, as this does not fall within the Office's mandate. Therefore, "the complaint materials" about this "have been forwarded for consideration according to jurisdiction to the Command of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces to conduct an inspection of the circumstances set forth in the complaints".

Criminal case over tortured Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors

Between March and April, three Jehovah's Witnesses – Serhiy Batiuzhenko, Eduard Martens and Ruslan Korobeinyk, all of them in their early fifties - were tortured at the same army training unit near Pidlisne, Dnipropetrovsk Region, for refusing military service as conscientious objectors. A military instructor beat them unconscious, while other soldiers mocked their faith, and withheld medical care.

Investigators began a criminal investigation into the torture of two of the three Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors who are from the city of Dnipro. Investigators of the Third Investigation Department located in Dnipro began investigating the physical harm to Batiuzhenko "motivated by religious intolerance" under Criminal Code Article 426-1, Part 4. This punishes "Excess of power or official authority by a military official" when conducted during a special period. This carries a jail term of 7 to 10 years. The torture of Martens was added to the same investigation.

Korobeinyk lives not in Dnipro but in Kremenchuk. It appears that officials have not begun an investigation into the torture he endured.

A forensic medical examination was ordered to determine the severity of the bodily injuries sustained by Batiuzhenko and Martens, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 on 26 August. The two were formally recognised as victims in the proceedings. The case currently remains at the pre-trial investigation stage.

"The investigation identified the person who directly inflicted the physical injuries," Jehovah's Witnesses added. "He was subsequently deployed to the frontline and, following a battle, was officially reported missing. It remains doubtful whether notices of suspicion will be issued to other persons who have been involved in the ill-treatment."

Jehovah's Witnesses submitted a request to additionally qualify the acts as torture, but received no official response. "This qualification does not appear to have been formally added to the case," Jehovah's Witnesses noted.

The Third Investigation Department in Dnipro did not respond to Forum 18's 24 June request for an interview with Investigators, or to its questions about the investigation.

Viktor Yelensky, head of the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (DESS), said he is aware of the torture of Batiuzhenko, Martens and Korobeinyk in the military unit. "We are checking this," he told Forum 18 in June. "We have contact with the Jehovah's Witness leadership." (END)

More reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in all Ukraine

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