Detention: On March 17, 2022, around six in the morning, Russian military forces stormed his home, threatened his wife and daughter with weapons, and took him away in handcuffs to an unknown location. During the detention, the occupiers explicitly stated that the reason was his membership in a veterans' organization of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). According to his wife, Yuliia Zarivna, the Russian military had lists of former Ukrainian servicemen, law enforcement officers, and civic activists they planned to detain.

Sentence: After Oleksandr Zarivny was abducted, his family lost all contact with him. According to testimonies from people released from Russian captivity, he might have initially been held in a temporary detention facility in occupied Kherson and later possibly transferred to occupied Crimea. His wife hired a lawyer who checked for information about his possible detention in the Simferopol pre-trial detention centre, but no official response regarding his whereabouts was obtained. The family also contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross, the National Information Bureau, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, and other international organizations, but received no confirmed information about Oleksandr's location or health condition. Ukrainian human rights defenders emphasize that his abduction bears all the signs of enforced disappearance and may qualify as a war crime.

As of July 12, 2026, there is no official information about Oleksandr Zarivny's whereabouts, health condition, or possible release. He remains among the Ukrainian civilians whose fate after abduction by Russian forces is still unknown.

Oleksandr Hryhorovych Zarivny is a Ukrainian educator, ATO veteran, public figure, and head of the Department of Humanitarian Policy of the Kherson District State Administration. In 2015, he was mobilized to the ATO zone. A year later, he was discharged and engaged in public activities: he headed the NGO "Union of Combatants - ATO Veterans of Oleshky District," helped former servicemen with document processing, and supported families of the deceased.

Later, he began working in the Department of Education, Family, and Sports of the then Oleshky District Administration, and after Oleshky joined the Kherson District, he won a competition and worked as the head of the Department of Humanitarian Policy of the Kherson District State Administration.

In the first weeks after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Zarivny family, according to Yuliia, lived like everyone else—constantly searching for food. Oleshky was left without natural gas and heating due to combat and heavy shelling by Russian forces, which damaged the gas distribution station near the city.

The family is particularly concerned about his health condition. According to his wife, Oleksandr has a heart condition and requires daily medication. It is still unknown whether he is receiving the necessary medical care.

Information used from open sources: Center for Investigative Journalism, Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR), Human Rights Center ZMINA, Association of Relatives of Kremlin Political Prisoners, Kherson Regional Military Administration.

Photo: Center for Investigative Journalism.

Update date: 12.07.2026.