Mayor of Dniprorudne had broken ribs and damaged lungs in Russian captivity — Prosecutor General's Office
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed that Dniprorudne Mayor Yevhenii Matvieiev died in Russian captivity on September 7, 2024, from torture-inflicted injuries, including multiple rib fractures and lung damage, the PGO said in response to an inquiry from LIGA.net.
According to law enforcement, Matvieiev died on September 7, 2024, in remand prison SIZO No. 3 in the town of Kizel in Russia’s Perm Krai. Death resulted from a closed blunt trauma to the torso with multiple rib fractures, lung damage and pleural membrane injuries.
Matvieiev was in captivity for 2 years and 8 months after Russians captured Dniprorudne — a town in Zaporizhzhia Oblast on the Dnipro River coast — at the end of February 2022. It remains under Russian occupation.
In December, Zaporizhzhia Oblast Military Administration reported that Matvieiev’s body was returned to Ukraine. Two Ukrainian soldiers released from captivity told Slidstvo.Info that Dniprorudne’s mayor was brutally beaten almost immediately after being transferred to Kizel SIZO No. 3 — during the so-called “initiation.”
The same remand prison in Russia’s Perm Krai held journalist Viktoria Roshchyna shortly before her death.
More about Matvieiev
He was born in 1960 in the town of Novokuznetsk in the southern part of Western Siberia. In 1984, he graduated from the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute with a degree in “electrical engineering.”
After military service, he first worked at a construction and finishing machinery plant, then at a cheese factory in Dniprorudne. Later, he became an energy engineer at the Zaporizhzhia Iron Ore Combine.
He was first elected Dniprorudne mayor in 2006 and was reelected twice more. The last time — in 2020 from the now-banned Opposition Platform party.
After the Russian occupation of Dniprorudne, Matvieiev refused to collaborate with the Russians. His whereabouts remained unknown for a long time until, in December 2024, Zaporizhzhia Oblast Military Administration reported that the official had been tortured to death in Russian captivity. Matvieiev was buried in Bucha.
