Four years before the verdict for beating a lawyer: how law enforcement officers are punished in Mykolaiv
The lawyer asked to identify himself — in response he was met with tear gas, handcuffs, and beatings
According to the materials of the State Bureau of Investigation, the Inhulskyi District Court of the city of Mykolaiv found the law enforcement officer guilty of exceeding official powers and sentenced him to 4 years of imprisonment. In addition, the convict was forbidden to hold positions in law enforcement agencies for 3 years. The SBI reported this court decision on April 7, 2026, although the crime itself, according to the investigation, occurred back in January 2022. That is, from the moment of the beating to the verdict more than four years have passed, and from the beating to the notification of suspicion – almost a year!
Investigators established that during patrol in Mykolaiv the officers stopped a car for a traffic violation. A lawyer was sitting in the passenger seat; he asked them to identify themselves and began to provide legal assistance to the driver. According to the investigation’s version, this moment became the cause of the use of force: the platoon commander used a tear gas agent, threw the man to the ground, put on handcuffs and began to beat him with his feet. As a result, the victim suffered a fractured rib.
The court found the officer guilty under Part 2 of Article 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Procedural supervision in this case was carried out by the Mykolaiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office. In this story what stands out is not only the brutality of the officer’s actions, but also how long it took the system to reach a verdict: the victim was not a random passerby but a lawyer performing his professional duties, yet the final court decision appeared only after four years.
Earlier we wrote:
- In Zaporizhzhia, a court found patrol officers guilty of exceeding their authority
- Why did the police stay silent for seven days? In Kyiv, a detainee in handcuffs died
- During a chase, cops stole property from the offender’s car
- Patrol officers fabricated “drug intoxication”, handcuffed the driver and took him to the TCC: lawlessness in Mykolaiv?
- In the Mykolaiv region, a police officer beat a man and then forced him to write a statement declaring he had no complaints
