Alerts | Denial of access to information

Chernihiv enlistment office refuses Slidstvo.Info request about burial of former POW

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On 29 May 2026, the Chernihiv regional territorial recruitment and social support centre refused to provide Slidstvo.Info with information about the burial of Ukrainian serviceman Volodymyr Srebrodolskyi, according to Slidstvo.Info.

The journalists requested the information while working on an investigation titled “We will burn you if you bury him here”: a village did not want to bury a soldier killed in captivity.” Slidstvo.Info said the newsroom had spent several weeks trying to establish the serviceman’s burial place by sending information requests to the recruitment centre, local authorities and forensic institutions, but mostly received refusals or contradictory answers.

In its response, the Chernihiv recruitment centre claimed that the journalists had not justified the need to collect the information, had not explained the purpose of the material and had not identified the interested party or “direct customer” behind its production and publication. The centre also cited the absence of consent from the serviceman’s relatives to disclose information about him.

Slidstvo.Info said its reporting found that Srebrodolskyi had no close relatives and had lived alone in the village of Karpylivka, Chernihiv region. After his body was returned to Ukraine through repatriation measures, problems arose over his burial, as some residents opposed burying him in the local cemetery because of a video recorded by Russian forces while he was in captivity.

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