Journalists Published a New Investigation Into Abuse in Ukraine’s Skala Regiment

Journalists at Slidstvo.Info have published an investigation into the treatment of servicemen who tried to leave the Skala regiment without authorization. The men featured in the report say they were fired upon while escaping and subjected to violence at training grounds.

One of them, mobilized soldier Oleksandr Zavalov, was fatally shot by a fellow serviceman. According to the journalists, Zavalov went to the bathroom and tried to climb out through a window. He was shot four times, with one bullet damaging his pelvic artery. Zavalov did not receive timely medical care and bled to death.

The serviceman who opened fire had previously faced criminal charges on several occasions and spent three years in prison, the investigation says.

Zavalov’s mother said her son was assigned to Skala after being detained by territorial recruitment center officers in January 2026. He was taken as he left a rehabilitation center where he was receiving treatment for drug addiction. Oleksandr spent the final days of his life at a training ground in the Kirovohrad region and called relatives from other people’s numbers.

“Mom, I am in hell. Pray for me,” he said shortly before his death.

Another man featured in the investigation, Arkadii Kukushkin, managed to escape from a training ground despite gunshot wounds to his arm and leg. He says he was not eligible for mobilization because he worked at a critical enterprise, was a full-time university student and had been removed from the military register because of a criminal conviction.

According to Kukushkin, territorial recruitment center officers forcibly mobilized him in Kharkiv on April 28, knocking out a tooth and spraying gas in his face. He was then sent to a Skala training ground in the Sumy region.

He was fired upon during his escape and shot twice. Kukushkin says the area surrounding the training ground had been mined and that explosive tripwires had been placed in the forest. He was forced to make his way through woods and swamps.

After reaching Kharkiv, Kukushkin stayed with acquaintances. A doctor operating clandestinely removed the bullets, but his injured arm has functioned poorly ever since.

Kukushkin sent the State Bureau of Investigation an account of what had happened and photographs of his wounds. In response, he received a summons in a case concerning absence without leave. He subsequently abandoned his complaint to the police and later managed to leave Ukraine through the Carpathian Mountains.

Another person interviewed by the journalists, an instructor named Yurii, served at a Skala training ground in the Kharkiv region. He said his superiors forced him to beat subordinates for various infractions.

Yurii also said the training-ground commander’s brother struck a mobilized soldier with a rifle butt and knocked out his eye for mishandling a weapon. The hospital report allegedly recorded the injury as the result of a mine blast.

The instructor himself said he was beaten by a senior serviceman. Because Yurii’s trainees had performed poorly at target practice, the man struck him in the head with a rocket-launcher tube and knocked out his back teeth.

Yurii was then given permission to see a dentist, traveled to Cherkasy and approached the Military Law Enforcement Service to request a transfer to another brigade. He was initially placed in a guardhouse, and representatives of Skala arrived to collect him the next day. The instructor asked the head of the local Military Law Enforcement Service unit not to hand him over to the regiment. Yurii was ultimately assigned to a reserve battalion.

Later, while on leave in Dnipro, Yurii was attacked in the street. He recognized the training-ground commander’s brother among his assailants. His complaints to the police yielded no result, and the journalists found that no criminal case had ever been opened over the beating.

The publication Babel previously reported 26 deaths among mobilized soldiers in the Skala regiment. Following the report, the State Bureau of Investigation began reviewing allegations of possible misconduct.