In December 2025, the media actively spread the news about a Pole who did not believe in the war in Ukraine, came to see everything with his own eyes, and eventually ended up in Russian captivity. Krzysztof Galos probably died in a Russian detention centre, wrote the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
Slidstvo.Info undertook its own investigation into the journey of Krzysztof Galos, a European civilian from a country not involved in the war with Russia. The editorial team reconstructed his journey in detail in the territory controlled by Ukraine. In addition, Slidstvo.Info found four men who had been released from captivity and who described the conditions of Halos’s detention in a Russian pre-trial detention centre. They emphasised that Krzysztof was treated with particular cruelty: ‘Lyakh (transl. — derogatory ethnic slur for Poles), k*rwa! And they beat him, beat him! It was because of his ethnicity that they treated him like that, because he was Polish.’
This is stated in the investigation by Slidstvo.Info.
In December 2025, the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported that Polish citizen Krzysztof Galos had allegedly died in Detention Centre No. 2 in Taganrog, Rostov Oblast, Russian Federation. According to the publication, he travelled to Ukraine in 2023 because he allegedly wanted to see for himself that there was a war going on there, and was later captured by the Russians on the Zaporizhzhia direction. Krzysztof Galos presumably died in a Russian detention centre.
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Slidstvo.Info launched its own investigation, as the story of Krzysztof Galos is one of the few known cases in which a civilian citizen of a European country not at war with Russia could have been tortured to death in a Russian prison. Three years after Galos’s probable death, many questions remain unanswered, and Russia has not informed Poland that it has captured their citizen.
According to sources in law enforcement agencies, Krzysztof Galos, a Polish citizen, entered Ukraine on 14 April 2023 via the Krakivets border crossing point. He was alone in the car. The next day, Krzysztof’s black Ford with a bicycle on the roof was caught on one of the CCTV cameras. Galos had previously entered Ukraine eight years ago. The 55-year-old Polish citizen lived in Krakow and worked at the post office for most of his life.
LVIV — ODESA — BERYSLAV: KRZYSTOF’S ROUTE IN UKRAINE
Thanks to data from a mobile operator, Slidstvo.Info was able to reconstruct Krzystof’s route in Ukrainian-controlled territory. From the border, Krzystof travelled to Odesa, where he stayed from 15 to 17 April. He then headed to Beryslav in the Kherson oblast. Krzystof’s phone was tracked there from 17 to 18 April.
Using facial recognition software, Slidstvo.Info managed to find a photo of Krzysztof with two Ukrainian soldiers, which was taken in Beryslav. The location was identified thanks to the building in the background. It is the Beryslav City Council.
Krzysztof Galos then travelled to the Zaporizhzhia oblast, where he disappeared on 20 April. At the request of Interpol, the Ukrainian police began searching for the Polish man and found out that on the morning of 20 April, Krzysztof had been stopped by Ukrainian soldiers. This happened at a checkpoint in the village of Hryhorivka in the Zaporizhzhia oblast. The soldiers explained to the foreigner that it was dangerous to continue driving, but he replied that he wanted ‘to visit his girlfriend in the temporarily occupied Enerhodar’.
Krzysztof was turned back, but on the same day he apparently found another way to enter the occupied territory. The Polish man was detained by Russian soldiers and sent to a pre-trial detention centre in Taganrog, Rostov Oblast, Russian Federation. A source of Slidstvo.Info in Russia says that Krzysztof’s car was probably hit. However, it has not been possible to confirm or refute this information at this time.
In August 2023, the so-called governor of the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia oblast, Yevhenii Balytskyi, recalled on Russian television a case in which the occupiers captured a Pole.
‘One Pole even told us that he was a tourist. Without batting an eye. I even came to see this miracle myself. He held out for a day, then we pressed him and he said that he was not a tourist at all and told us everything properly,’ Balytskyi said.
‘THEY SAID THAT YOU ARE CRAZY IN YOUR EUROPE, WE WILL GET TO YOU’
Earlier, Slidstvo.Info reported that in Taganrog pre-trial detention centre No. 2, where Galos was taken, journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna and the mayor of Dniprorudne, Yevhen Matveiev, were also being held, who died from torture and inadequate conditions of detention a few days after being transferred from Taganrog to prison in Kizel, Perm Krai, Russia. Since 2022, the Taganrog pre-trial detention centre has been headed by Alexander Shtoda. In 2023, Alexander had four deputies: Andrei Sapitsky, Andrei Mikhailichenko, Alexei Sharapanyuk and Alexander Kliuykov.
Journalists from Slidstvo.Info found four Ukrainians who had been released from captivity and were held in Taganrog at the same time as Krzysztof Galos.
‘Sometime after lunch, they bring in a man. We hear that he doesn’t speak Russian. And they say to him: “Lyakh, lyakh! K*rwa!” — and it starts. Well, they beat him, beat him. You can hear that they are beating the man. He is groaning, and they start stretching him into a split. That’s when you run out, your hands pulled up behind your back. And when you’re being examined, you stand by the wall, turn your wrists towards the wall, and one [prison employee] comes up, holds one of your legs, and the other pulls it. And they just tear you apart. This attitude towards him was based on ethnicity, because he is Polish,’ says a Ukrainian man released from captivity under the pseudonym ‘Brytva’, who was held in a neighbouring cell.
Another former prisoner, Andrii, recalls that the guards at the detention centre were very pleased that a Polish citizen had been brought in.
‘They laughed and rejoiced that they had caught a Pole. They said that you are next, that you shouldn’t relax, that you are crazy in your Europe, that we will get to you,’ recalls Andrii.
Once, Andrii and Krzysztof were taken to wash. Andrii heard Russian prison guards beating the Pole in the bathhouse.
‘The Pole ran, fell through [the wooden boards through which water was flowing] and broke his forehead. They called a doctor. The Russians forced him to say something in Polish, they laughed at him. And while they were bandaging his head, they also beat him. For speaking Polish instead of Russian. What kind of medical care is this, when they bandage your head and beat you?’ Andrii asks rhetorically.
‘Brytva’ later managed to speak to people who were in the same cell with Krzysztof at the time. The Pole told them that he had come to Ukraine to see religious sites.
‘Then he said that he didn’t believe there was a war, so he decided to see for himself,’ says the former prisoner.
The Russians believed that Krzysztof was making it up, that he couldn’t speak Russian. However, the freed prisoners deny this.
‘When I heard him, I thought that he wasn’t in the mood to make anything up. He was really in bad shape. A person in despair will seize any opportunity to get help, to make their life easier somehow. He didn’t know Russian — that’s 100% certain,’ says Mykyta Semenov, an Azov fighter who was released from captivity.
‘I WILL PROBABLY DIE’
Krzysztof’s cellmates told him about the day they last saw Krzysztof Galos. It was in July 2023.
‘The guys looked out the window that overlooked the courtyard. There were special forces moving around. And they weren’t wearing masks. One of them turned his head and saw that the guys were looking out the window. Five minutes later, the special forces arrived and beat them with batons,’ says the man released from captivity.
According to him, Krzysztof Galos was beaten severely on his legs that day. He was beaten so badly that a lot of blood flowed to his legs.
‘Most of the blood from the body flowed to the legs. This is a well-known practice. I have seen this happen many times with other guys. When a person starts to lose consciousness because blood flows to the site of the injury very strongly, because the capillaries burst there and so on,’ says another former prisoner, Hryhorii.
‘And then, about three or four days later, one morning we heard some kind of commotion. The guys say we sat down for breakfast, and the Pole, in broken speech, says, ‘I think I’m going to die.’ We could see that he was already very pale. He could barely walk around the cell or sit — everything hurt, his body was beaten all over. They told him, “At least eat a little”. He took the spoon, put it into his mouth, and the porridge spilled out. Saliva started running. He lost consciousness. They began calling for help. They say that when he was being carried out of the cell, his body was already starting to stiffen,’ says ‘Brytva’.
RUSSIA DID NOT RETURN THE BODY OF THEIR CITIZEN TO POLAND
After that, Krzysztof was not returned to his cell. In the evening, prison guards came to his cellmates and forced them to sign a document stating that Krzysztof’s death was natural.
After Galos’ disappearance, Polish police took DNA samples from his toothbrush. Among the bodies that have been returned to Ukraine during repatriations, no DNA matches have been found. Russia also did not return Krzysztof’s body to Poland. There is no death certificate for Krzysztof’s family either.
Slidstvo.Info asked the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Polish chargé d’affaires in Ukraine, Piotr Lukasiewicz, for comments. However, no response was received.
Investigators from the National Police of Ukraine opened a criminal case into the possible death of Krzysztof Galos in a Russian prison on 17 January 2026, following an appeal by Slidstvo.Info.
У відповідь на запит українських поліцейських у бюро Інтерполу Польщі відповіли наступне:
In response to the request of the Ukrainian police, the Polish Interpol bureau replied as follows:
‘The Polish side sent a request to the competent authorities of the Russian Federation. The response stated that the death certificate was issued by the Civil Registry Office in the Rostov oblast, but there are currently no copies of the certificate or any information regarding the location of the body’.
The police asked Krzysztof’s relatives to provide their biological samples in order to continue the search for Krzysztof’s body in Ukraine.
