‘He would simulate raping the prisoners’: ‘Schemes’ and OCCRP identify doctor who abused Ukrainian inmates at a Russian prison colony
Journalists with the Ukrainian investigative project “Schemes” and OCCRP (1, 2) have identified a Russian doctor who abused Ukrainian prisoners at Penal Colony No. 7 in the village of Pakino in the Vladimir region.
Former prisoners — both Ukrainian military personnel and civilians — say the doctor, whom they nicknamed Konoval, subjected them to constant psychological pressure.
The medical worker forced prisoners to undress and simulate sexual acts, made comments about their genitals, and threatened them with rape, according to sources who spoke with the journalists.
Note: This article contains explicit language.
“Schemes” quotes former prisoners describing the man:
- “He would come up and simulate how he fucks [rapes] the prisoners,”
- “And this doctor says: ‘Show me, take off your underwear. Oh, what a pretty head you have on your dick,’”
- “It was the doctor specifically who told us to walk around naked. He also threatened rape.”
Konoval also denied prisoners necessary medical care — a failure that, according to former inmates, at one point triggered an outbreak of scabies, a parasitic skin disease, at the colony. One former prisoner said that when they asked for medical help, the doctor told them he “wanted us to suffer.”
In total, “Schemes” interviewed about 50 former inmates of Penal Colony No. 7 in the Vladimir region. Drawing on their testimony, the journalists determined that Konoval is Vyacheslav Cherdantsev, 48, who has worked at the colony for more than 10 years.
Cherdantsev is originally from Kyrgyzstan, where he also began his career in the prison system. One of his first positions was at a juvenile correctional colony for minors. In 2013, he moved to the Vladimir region and took a job at one of the children’s homes there before joining Penal Colony No. 7.
“Schemes” obtained photographs of the doctor taken in 2023. About 30 of the former prisoners interviewed by the journalists viewed the photos and said the man in them “looks like” Konoval; about 10 more said they definitively recognized him as the doctor who had abused them.
Cherdantsev did not answer calls from the journalists.
Journalists and human rights defenders regularly publish testimonies from former Ukrainian prisoners. According to their accounts, Russia has created a system of prisons and pretrial detention facilities specifically for Ukrainian prisoners — both military personnel and civilians. In total, as of April 2025, more than 180 places of detention were known to exist in Russia and in Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian forces.
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“Schemes”
An investigative project of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service.
OCCRP
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project — a consortium of media outlets and reporters founded in 2007 that conducts investigative journalism across different regions of the world.