Lviv region: businessman detained for keeping a 71-year-old man in slavery for 23 years, paying him with food and cigarettes

His passport was taken; he lived for years in a shed and a metal container without water or electricity, and medics documented chronic illnesses and injuries

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21 Apr 2026

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In Horodok in the Lviv region, an entrepreneur was detained who is suspected of years-long labor exploitation of an acquaintance — according to the investigation, it lasted 23 years; the facts were reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General.

According to the investigation, the story began in 2002: the sister turned to the businessman asking him to help her 47-year-old brother with employment and housing, because he abused alcohol and the family wanted to influence his way of life. The acquaintance offered him household work with pay and accommodation, but soon these arrangements effectively stopped. The agency described how his rights and opportunities were gradually curtailed.

“As the investigation established, in the first years the man could still move freely, visit relatives and leave the premises. But over time he was deprived of this possibility,”

Wages later turned into rations: instead of money the man was given food, sometimes ready meals, cigarettes and a place to sleep. At first he worked on building a house, then he performed physical work every day — chopping wood, mowing grass, tending the vegetable garden. From spring to autumn the victim was taken to the entrepreneur’s agro-industrial farm, where he guarded the area with a lake and looked after the pigs.

The living conditions, according to the investigation, were inhuman. In an outbuilding with a wood-burning stove it was impossible to warm the room with a concrete floor and poorly fitting doors; there was no water supply, and a pit latrine served as a toilet. On the farm territory the man lived in a metal container without windows, electricity, water or sewage; he drew water from a spring, washed in the lake, and had no place to prepare food.

The victim had no change of clothes or bedding. As stated in the case materials, the employer took his passport, ignored complaints about his health, and if dissatisfied with the work beat and humiliated him.

The man lived under such conditions for 23 years. He was freed only at the end of September last year, when migration police officers received a tip about possible exploitation of a person.

The Office of the Prosecutor General clarified the medical findings regarding the victim.

“The victim is currently 71 years old. Doctors recorded chronic cardiovascular diseases, hand injuries and missing teeth. A forensic psychiatric examination determined a deterioration of his psycho-emotional state and social adaptation”