Zaporizhzhia region's Gauleiter Balytskyy is sentenced to life in Ukraine

In Ukraine, Yevhen Balytsky, a gauleiter of Zaporizhzhia region, was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia, having been found guilty of collaboration and war crimes. This was reported to by Security Service of Ukraine.

According to the investigation, Balytsky organized the massive theft and illegal export of Ukrainian grain in the interests of the Russian Federation.

The SBU claims that after seizing part of the region, he began implementing Kremlin instructions to rob local farmers and agricultural companies.

Threatening with weapons, imprisonment and physical violence, the occupiers seized private property of agricultural entrepreneurs, primarily Ukrainian grain. Balytskyi then ensured the illegal export of the looted products on behalf of Russia.

The main "routes" of grain were from Mariupol, and then to the ports of Rostov-on-Don or the temporarily occupied Crimea with further transportation to the Middle East.

In this way, in 2025 alone, the gauleiter organized the theft of almost half a million tons of Ukrainian grain.

The court found Balytsky guilty under three articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:

→ collaboration activities;

→ organization of aiding and abetting the aggressor state;

→ war crimes committed by prior conspiracy by a group of persons.

The SBU reminded that the convict is a former MP from the banned Party of Regions, who was one of the first to publicly support Russia at the beginning of the full-scale war. After that, they appointed him as a gauleiter in the temporarily occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region.

Balytskyi already has a 15-year prison sentence in absentia with confiscation of property for organizing the pseudo-referendum.

• In June 2023, Balytskyi was sentenced to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property.
• In April 2024, it was reported that the High Anti-Corruption Court had recovered the assets of the Zaporizhzhia gauleiter's family.