by Olha Hembik | 2026-05-21

Krzysztof Galos, a 55-year-old postal worker from Krakow, didn't believe there was really a war. So he got in his car and drove to see it for himself.

He crossed into Ukraine on April 14, 2023, alone. He photographed himself with Ukrainian soldiers in front of a city council building in Beryslav. Six weeks later, he was dead, beaten to death in a Russian pretrial detention center. He is the first documented case of a European civilian, who was not a Ukrainian national, tortured and killed in Russian custody since the full-scale invasion began.

When local Krakow media began covering the story late last year, it shook the city's large Ukrainian refugee community.

"I looked at his Facebook page; he was someone who fought for urban improvements, rescued dogs, and challenged social injustices," Maryna Kot, a refugee and member of the Ukrainian Women in Krakow Telegram group, told Kontur. "He wanted to make the world better."

Into occupied territory

Ukrainian servicemen turned Galos back at a checkpoint near Hryhorivka in the Zaporizhzhia region on April 20, 2023, after he said he was traveling to visit a girlfriend in Russian-occupied Enerhodar. He found another route in. Russian forces detained him at a checkpoint in the occupied territory.

Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-installed governor of occupied Zaporizhzhia, later boasted about it on television. According to reporting by Slidstvo.Info, Balitsky described the interrogation: "He held out for twenty-four hours; then we applied pressure, and he admitted he wasn't a tourist and told us everything we needed to hear."

Russia transferred Galos to Pretrial Detention Center (PDC) No. 2 in Taganrog, Rostov Region -- the same facility where staff had previously tortured Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchina and Yevhen Matveiev, the mayor of Dniprorudne. Both later died from their injuries and the facility's conditions.

'Simply because he was a Pole'

Former inmates who spoke to Slidstvo.Info said Galos told them he came because he "didn't believe there was a war." Guards beat and humiliated him based on his nationality.

"They laughed and bragged about catching a Pole," said Andrei, a former prisoner. "They told us, 'You're next, don't get comfortable. You've lost your minds over there in Europe -- we're coming for you.'"

The Memorial Human Rights Defense Center reported that guards beat Galos repeatedly for failing to learn Russian and for Poland's support of Ukraine. They forced him to memorize the Russian national anthem and military songs.

"Russian prisons forbid any language other than Russian," Larysa Kucherenko, a former Ukrainian prisoner of war, told Kontur.

Kucherenko, a member of Ukraine's National Guard, was arrested in Mariupol on April 2, 2022, and spent over six months in Russian-run prisons in Olenivka and Donetsk. Every morning, she said, guards forced prisoners to sing the Russian anthem and shout pro-Russia slogans. Repeated beatings and denial of medical care left her disabled after her release in a prisoner exchange in October 2022.

According to Memorial, during one inspection, guards beat Galos so severely that his legs turned blue and he lost the ability to walk. He died in mid-June 2023. Officials then forced his cellmates to sign statements claiming no beatings had occurred.

The official cause of death

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs notified the Polish Embassy of his death on March 24, 2026 -- nearly three years after the fact. The official cause of death: cardiomyopathy of unknown origin leading to cardiovascular failure. Galos was buried in a local Taganrog cemetery ten days after his death. His family has not received a death certificate.

On March 27, 2026, the Krakow District Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation into his death, pointing to "deprivation of liberty with extreme cruelty, and the infliction of grievous bodily harm resulting in death." Authorities may reclassify the case as a war crime.

"Russian propaganda has branded Poles as enemy number two, right after Ukrainians," Mykhailo Strelnykov, founder of the Museum of Victory over Despotism in Poland, told Kontur. "Poles know history well; they remember that Russians are barbarians with grenades. That is why they tortured this man with such particular cruelty."

On April 20, 2026, Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs updated its travel advisory for Russia, urging citizens against all travel due to Russia's designation of Poland as a hostile state.

Ukraine lists more than 80,000 people as missing. How many are held in Russian prisons remains unknown.