Oleksii Ivanko — Kharkiv

Date 08.05.2025

Source note: official statements, media reports, eyewitness accounts, and social media claims are presented as claims by the respective sources. They are not treated as established facts without independent confirmation, forensic documents, or a court ruling.

39-year-old amateur photographer, traveler, and cycling activist Oleksii Ivanko died on 12 May 2025 on the grounds of the Shevchenkivskyi district recruitment center in Kharkiv after falling from the third floor.

Chronology

  • 08.05.2025 — recruitment center personnel stopped Oleksii on the street, beat him, pulled him into a bus, and brought him into the facility courtyard. When he refused to enter the building, a soldier punched him in the face, and Oleksii struck back. After refusing to undergo a medical board, he was released that evening. He described the fight in detail in a chat of local bicycle tourists.
  • 10.05.2025 — he left for a grocery store without his passport or mobile phone and never returned. According to the recruitment center, he was stopped without papers and "voluntarily agreed to go to the center."
  • 12.05.2025 — his body was found on the premises of the enlistment office. According to police, he jumped from a third-floor hallway window.
  • 13.05.2025 — an investigator phoned his mother asking her to identify her son at the morgue.

Accounts

Friends and relatives

His friend Andrii Vasyliev told Suspilne that Oleksii held consistent pacifist beliefs and categorically refused military service, but showed no suicidal tendencies. Relatives and friends believe personnel tried to break him by force or threw him out of the window in retaliation for the 8 May fight: "They took him on the 10th, he jumped on the 12th. He was there for three days. What was he doing there that whole time? Were they beating him or not?".

Official version

Police and recruitment center officials stated that the man committed suicide and that no violence had been committed against him. Kharkiv regional police chief Petro Tokar stated that injuries matched a fall from height, and that investigators treated pacifist posts found in chat messages as evidence of motive.

Investigation status

  • The commander of Operational Command East ordered an official service inquiry.
  • Leadership of the Shevchenkivskyi district recruitment center was suspended pending the investigation.
  • The State Bureau of Investigation and the police opened criminal proceedings for exceeding official powers and murder.

Sources