Russia reportedly transfers detained Ukrainian OSCE staff member to medical correctional facility, Sybiha says
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Russia has reportedly transferred Vadym Golda, one of three Ukrainian employees of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) detained since 2022, to a medical correctional facility in Russia's Tambov Oblast, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Nov. 9.
"It came to our knowledge that Vadym Golda has already been transferred to the medical-correctional facility in Russia's Tambov region, placing his health — both physical and mental — at an even more serious risk," Sybiha wrote on X on Nov. 9.
The minister warned that, if confirmed, Golda would become the third Ukrainian OSCE staff member transferred from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory to Russia, in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
"These actions may also amount to war crimes, the latest in a series of grave violations suffered by the three OSCE staff members," Sybiha said.
Golda, who worked for the OSCE's former Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine, has been held by Russian authorities since 2022. In July 2024, a Russian-controlled court in occupied Donetsk sentenced him to 14 years in prison on espionage charges.
According to the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group, Golda last contacted his family on Oct. 15. He had previously warned them about reports that Russia was transferring detainees from occupied Ukrainian territories to Siberia.
His whereabouts remained unknown until the latest information about his reported transfer emerged.
The two other detained OSCE staff members, Dmytro Shabanov and Maksym Petrov, were sentenced to 13 years in prison by Russian-installed authorities in occupied Luhansk Oblast in September 2022 on treason charges.
Both were subsequently transferred to prisons in Russia in 2025, with Shabanov held in Omsk Oblast and Petrov in Chelyabinsk Oblast.
Sybiha called on the OSCE Secretary General and Switzerland, which holds the organization's rotating chairmanship, to urgently verify the detainees' whereabouts and secure their release.
Ukraine will also raise the issue at the OSCE Permanent Council, he said.
"All three OSCE SMM staff members — Dmytro Shabanov, Maksym Petrov and Vadym Golda — must be finally freed. Now."
