Artem Dmytruk, a fugitive member of the Ukrainian parliament, accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of instructing the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to abduct and kill him.

He claimed that SBU agents detained and severely beat him in a 2022 incident in Odessa, a Black Sea port city.

Dmytruk was elected to parliament in 2019 as a member of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, but was expelled two years later and continued to serve as an independent MP.

In August 2024, Dmitruk fled the country, stating that the authorities had planned to “liquidate” him.

The Prosecutor General’s Office has since placed Dmytruk on a wanted list, accusing him of assaulting a police officer and attempting to steal his gun.

In a video posted on X on Friday, Dmitruk detailed his allegations against Zelensky and his chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, and shared images of his injuries.

I’m Artem Dmytruk, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament. I was brutally beaten, tortured in basements, and nearly killed on Zelensky’s orders for my opposition activities.

In this video, I will tell you the shocking details of the attempts to eliminate me, and my kidnapping by… pic.twitter.com/OuBtBpTqud

— Dmytruk Artem (@Dmytruk__Artem) March 21, 2025

'Thousands of stories like mine'

“I was brutally beaten, tortured in basements, and nearly killed on Zelensky’s orders for my opposition activities,” Dytruk wrote in an accompanying post, asserting that the government targeted him because of his “political activities.”

According to Dmytruk, Viktor Dorovsky, the head of the SBU office in Odesa had threatened to kill him and cut his head off in a phone call in 2022. The politician stated that on March 4, 2022, while delivering aid to a military checkpoint, a group of SBU agents kidnapped him, placed a bag over his head, handcuffed him, and brutally assaulted him using rifle butts, feet, and fists. “I lost consciousness,” he recounted.

Dmytruk alleged that he was taken to a basement, where he was “tortured” and had his nose broken. He claimed that the agents were trying to force him into making incriminating statements, adding that they then drove him to several locations, including a regional SBU office, where the threats and beatings continued.  

The legislator said that the agents threatened him with a gun and made him promise on camera that he would stop criticizing Zelensky, Yermak, and the government before eventually dropping him off at a parking lot.  

“The order to commit these crimes against me was given personally by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Andriy Yermak, and the head of the Odessa SBU Viktor Dorovsky,” Dmytruk wrote on X, using the Ukrainian spelling of the names.  

“There are thousands of stories like mine. There are people who have been sitting in the basements of the SBU for more than two years,” he said.

Reality of the SBU

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have previously accused the SBU of human rights violations, particularly since tensions with Russia spiked in 2014. 

In 2023, it was found that the SBU assassinated Darya Dugina daughter of prominent Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin. Ukrainian operatives installed components of a bomb that killed Dugina in a hidden compartment in a pet carrier. 

The SBU and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence have carried out dozens of assassinations, including of war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky at a cafe in St. Petersburg.