Russians may have transferred OSCE staff member Vadym Golda from occupied part of Donetsk region to Russia: no contact since October 15. PHOTOS
Russian occupiers may have transferred unlawfully imprisoned OSCE Special Monitoring Mission staff member Vadym Golda from the temporarily occupied Donetsk region to Russia. He stopped contacting his family after reports of preparations to transfer prisoners.
The human rights organization Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group reported this, according to Censor.NET.
According to human rights advocates, Golda last spoke to his relatives on October 15, 2026. Earlier, he had told them about rumors that prisoners would be transferred to penal colonies in Siberia.
According to him, the occupiers began regularly taking prisoners away in small groups in August. Golda himself expected to be transferred on October 19.
There has been no contact with him since. His family does not know whether the transfer took place, where he is now or the conditions in which he is being held.
What is known about the imprisonment of OSCE staff
Vadym Golda is one of three Ukrainian staff members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) whom Russian forces unlawfully detained in occupied territories in 2022.
In July 2024, an occupation-controlled court in Donetsk sentenced him to 14 years in prison on espionage charges.
The other two mission staff members, Dmytro Shabanov and Maksym Petrov, were transferred to Russian penal colonies in Omsk and Chelyabinsk, respectively, in 2025.
Human rights advocates stress that forcibly transferring unlawfully convicted individuals from occupied territories to Russia violates international humanitarian law. In particular, Articles 49 and 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibit the deportation of protected persons and require that they be detained in occupied territory.
The human rights organization warns that prolonged prisoner transfers, harsh conditions in remote penal colonies and the absence of independent monitoring create additional risks to prisoners’ lives and health.
All three OSCE staff members remain in Russian captivity. Human rights advocates are calling on Russia to immediately inform Golda’s family of his whereabouts and release the unlawfully detained Ukrainians.
