FIFTH SECTION
CASE OF SHABRATSKYY AND SHABRATSKA v. UKRAINE
(Application no. 19234/18)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
26 March 2026
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Shabratskyy and Shabratska v. Ukraine,
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 María Elósegui, President,
 Andreas Zünd,
 Mykola Gnatovskyy, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 19234/18) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 3 April 2018 by two Ukrainian nationals, Mr Sergiy Grygorovych Shabratskyy (“the first applicant”), who was born in 1965 and died in 2024, and Ms Lyudmyla Ananiyivna Shabratska (“the second applicant”), who was born in 1965 and, at the time of the introduction of the application, lived in Pryvillia; the applicants were represented by Ms Y. Zakrevska and Ms O. Mykhalevych, lawyers practising in Kyiv;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms M. Sokorenko;
the parties’ observations;
 
Having deliberated in private on 5 March 2026,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the death of the applicants’ son in the army, reportedly by suicide, and the related domestic investigation. It raises issues under Article 2 of the Convention. 2. At the time of the events the applicants’ son, D.Sh., was the commander of a reconnaissance and sabotage squad within the Aidar military unit based in Lysychansk and fighting in Eastern Ukraine under the command of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. 3. The applicants stated that D.Sh. had accused his superiors, I.R. and A.Y., the commanders of the company and the platoon to which his squad belonged, of various unlawful activities. 4. In early March 2015 D.Sh. allegedly told his parents that he might be killed by or at the instruction of I.R. and A.Y. On the evening of 25 March 2015 he telephoned them and shared his plan to pay them a brief visit. He also mentioned that he had been suffering from a severe headache. 5. The military unit’s doctor made statements to the effect that, on the evening of 25 March 2015 he had heard D.Sh. talk by telephone with his girlfriend “in raised tones”, after which D.Sh. had asked him for some sedatives. 6. According to statements by V.T., an acquaintance of D.Sh. who was also serving in Aidar but in a different location, D.Sh. had told him that he had possessed some confidential, incriminating information about his superiors, I.R. and A.Y., and that he had been threatened by them. Furthermore, on the evening of 25 March 2015 D.Sh. had allegedly told V.T. by telephone that he was afraid for his life and had asked him to take him out of Lysychansk. 7. On 26 March 2015 at about 10.50 a.m. D.Sh. died on the premises occupied by his military unit under the following circumstances. 8. Fellow soldiers (K.M. and D.S.) with whom he had shared his room stated that that morning D.Sh. had woken them up by firing shots into the wall. He had then allegedly told them to stand against the wall and directed his gun towards them. K.M. stated that, when he had asked D.Sh. what was going on, the latter had hit him in the face with his left hand, in which he had been holding a grenade. K.M. and D.S. had managed to leave the room. 9. Some time later a series of gunshots and a grenade explosion were heard. The witnesses’ statements were contradictory as to the number of gunshots, their sequence with respect to the grenade explosion and the time between those events. 10. D.Sh. was found dead inside the room. He had a perforating gunshot wound in the head and multiple injuries from a grenade explosion, including his left hand which had been torn off. 11. On the same date, 26 March 2015, the Lysychansk city police, under the procedural management of the Luhansk garrison military prosecutor, launched a criminal investigation in respect of the incident. While the relevant entry in the Unified State Register of Pre-trial Investigations referred to a murder charge, it also contained a note on the possibility that his death had been a suicide. 12. Also on 26 March 2015 the police inspected the scene and seized the gun, its magazine with bullets and several bullet shells and grenade fragments. Furthermore, the military staff present in or near the premises at the time of the incident were questioned (see paragraph 9 above). 13. A forensic medical expert examination report, which was issued on 30 May 2015, stated that D.Sh. had died of combined gunshot and grenade blast injuries. In the expert’s view, it could not be excluded that D.Sh. had inflicted all those injuries on himself. No injuries indicative of a struggle or self-defence had been recorded. 14. On 11 and 12 June 2015 the applicants were questioned as witnesses. They stated, in particular, that their son had had conflicts with I.R., whose allegedly unlawful activities he had denounced before the State Security Service. 15. On 12 June 2015 an investigative experiment report was drawn up. It stated, in general terms, that it would have technically been possible for D.Sh. to have first pulled the pin on the grenade and to have then shot himself in the head. A forensic medical expert examination report of 16 June 2015 confirmed that finding. 16. On 28 June 2015 D.Sh.’s girlfriend, A.S., gave the investigator written statements as a witness. She submitted that at about 9.45 a.m. on 26 March 2015 a fellow soldier of her boyfriend, D.S. (see paragraph 8 above for the previous reference to this person) had telephoned her and had told her to urgently come to the military unit, without further explanations. D.Sh., to whom he had passed the telephone, had told A.S. in a hoarse voice that he loved her. When she had asked him whether everything was fine, he had answered in the negative. After she had arrived at the military base at about noon on 26 March 2015, she had found out that D.Sh. had died. She stated that D.Sh. had not trusted his fellow soldiers K.M. and D.S. during the preceding several months. Although A.S.’s questioning was subsequently ordered on several occasions, it appears that she was never questioned on account of reported difficulties in establishing her whereabouts. 17. On 21 November 2015 the applicants were granted the procedural status of victims at their request and were provided access to the case file. 18. On 10 February 2016 the Luhansk Regional Department of the State Security Service wrote to the investigator, in reply to his enquiry, that it had not received any complaints from D.Sh. 19. On 30 March 2016 the investigation was discontinued for lack of evidence of a criminal offence. It was concluded that D.Sh. had taken his own life without anybody else’s responsibility engaged. 20. On 6 June 2016 the Lysychansk Town Court (“the Lysychansk Court”), allowing a complaint by the applicants, overturned the above‑mentioned ruling and ordered that the investigation be resumed. 21. As was known from reports in the mass media, in early July 2016 I.R. was arrested on suspicion, in particular, of banditism and kidnapping. Several days later he was released under the assurances of some members of parliament. The case file before the Court does not contain any material in that regard. It is not known whether the charges against I.R. concerned the death of the applicants’ son, nor is there any information about the outcome of the related proceedings. 22. On 15 August 2017 I.R. was questioned as a witness. He submitted, in particular, that, shortly before his death, D.Sh. had had a traumatising experience of being surrounded by enemies in the combat zone. 23. On 20 April 2018 the deputy head of the Luhansk regional police wrote a letter to the Lysychansk police criticising the ongoing investigation into D.Sh.’s death as virtually stagnated. He also gave various instructions, which included the following:
-          to change the investigator in charge of the case;
-          to carry out, without delay, a forensic ballistics expert examination with a view to verifying whether the bullets and shells withheld from the incident scene had been shot from D.Sh.’s gun;
-          to locate and ensure additional questioning of all the servicemen who had been present inside and near the military base at the time of D.Sh.’s death, in order to, in particular, clearly establish the number of shots and their sequence with respect to the grenade explosion;
-          to conduct simultaneous questioning of the witnesses in the event that there were persistent contradictions in their statements;
-          to carry out a posthumous forensic psychiatric expert examination in respect of D.Sh.; and
-          to comply with the previous instructions of the Luhansk garrison military prosecutor. 24. On 22 December 2018 a forensic ballistics expert report was issued. It concluded that all the bullet shells retrieved from the incident scene had been shot from the same gun. As was confirmed by the weapon assignment register, the gun had belonged to D.Sh.. 25. On 26 December 2018 the Joint Forces Military Prosecutor’s Office[1] decided to entrust the investigation to the Luhansk regional police instead of the Lysychansk police. Its decision contained the following criticisms of the investigation up to that point:
-          failure to ensure an expedient, complete and objective investigation over more than three years;
-          lack of effectiveness and consistency in the investigative efforts;
-          failure to identify and question all the witnesses; and
-          persistent failure to comply with the supervising prosecutor’s instructions, which had been ignored seven times. 26. On 8 January 2019 a forensic expert examination report was issued in respect of swabs taken from D.Sh.’s right hand. It was concluded that they did not contain any explosion or gunshot residues. 27. On 26 January 2019 another forensic medical expert report found that it would have been impossible for D.Sh. to have shot himself in the head after having exploded the grenade. It was noted that, as indicated by the direction of the gunshot wound, it had been inflicted by the left hand, whereas D.Sh.’s left hand had been torn off by the grenade explosion. 28. On 17 September 2019 a posthumous forensic psychiatric expert examination in respect of D.Sh. was completed. While it was considered established that D.Sh. had been in considerable emotional distress on the eve of his death, the experts noted that they did not have sufficient material at their disposal to answer the question whether D.Sh. had been suffering from any mental disorders which could have triggered his taking of his own life. 29. In 2018-20 the investigator further questioned some of the witnesses, whose statements were largely similar to those given before (see paragraphs 5, 9 and 12 above). As regards some other witnesses, it was found impossible to question them either because their whereabouts were unknown or for other reasons. 30. On 6 July 2021 another investigative experiment was carried out, this time in the presence of the first applicant and his lawyer. A technical participant of the same stature as D.Sh. played the latter’s role using a dummy grenade and an assault rifle. It was confirmed that, as indicated by D.Sh.’s injuries, the grenade had exploded while he had been holding it in his left hand. Also, the direction of the gunshot wound showed that D.Sh. could not have inflicted it with his right hand. The technical participant reproduced various versions as to possible actions by D.Sh. He found it difficult to use the rifle with only one hand. Accordingly, he was holding it with his right hand and imitated pressing on the trigger with the left thumb while holding the dummy grenade in the left hand, first sitting on the coat rack bench, then sitting on the floor with his back against the coat rack bench and, lastly, standing inside the room near the entrance door. An explosives expert, who was present during the experiment, noted that, regard being had to the damage and traces on the walls caused by the explosion, D.Sh. had been standing when the grenade had exploded in his left hand. The expert ruled out the scenario that somebody might have thrown the grenade inside the room and that D.Sh. might have attempted to throw it back out. He stated that D.Sh.’s injuries would have been different in that scenario. At the same time, a forensic medical expert, also present at the experiment, submitted that, as indicated by the gunshot injury, the rifle had been pressed against D.Sh.’s chin at the moment of the shot. In the expert’s view, D.Sh. had likely been in a seated position. 31. The first applicant pointed out during the experiment that his son had been right-handed. He therefore found it difficult to accept the version that D.Sh. had both pulled the pin of the grenade and had pressed on the trigger of the rifle with only his left hand. 32. Furthermore, the experiment sought to verify whether, regard being had to the victim’s position, somebody else could have shot him after the grenade explosion. It was shown that, albeit with difficulty, a left-handed person might have succeeded in shooting D.Sh. 33. On 20 August 2021 the investigator ordered a forensic technical explosives expert examination with a view to establishing at what distance from the floor the grenade had exploded. The expert was also called to assess the probability of each of the following three scenarios:
  during the grenade explosion D.Sh. had been sitting on the coat rack bench inside the room near the entrance holding the rifle in his right hand while having set the butt of the rifle on the floor and having pressed its barrel against his chin while also holding the grenade in his left hand, with the left thumb being placed on the rifle trigger;
  the same scenario as above, but assuming that D.Sh. had been sitting on the floor, with his back against the coat rack bench; and
  at the moment of the grenade explosion, D.Sh. had been standing inside the room near the entrance and holding the grenade in the left hand hanging down along his body. 34. On 15 November 2021 a forensic technical explosives expert examination report was issued. It concluded that the grenade had exploded at a height of 64-75 cm from the floor. Given that the distance from the rifle butt to the trigger was 34 cm and that the trigger had not been in the epicentre of the explosion, the expert ruled out the possibility of the first two above-mentioned scenarios. As regards the third scenario, the expert found it plausible. 35. In 2022 the investigation file was evacuated from the Luhansk region to Dnipro, regard being had to the Russian military occupation of the relevant area. 36. On 29 April 2024 the Luhansk Bureau of the Eastern Region Defence Specialised Prosecutor’s Office, which had taken over the procedural management of the investigation at some point, issued numerous instructions to the investigator in charge of the case. It was noted that some of the investigative measures, which yet remained to be carried out (in particular the additional questioning of witnesses), had been requested by the applicants back in 2016. 37. In the period from May to October 2024 the investigator made several attempts to establish the whereabouts of some former Aidar servicemen with a view to their additional questioning as witnesses. It appeared impossible to locate some of them, whereas some others were either living abroad or were serving in the combat zone. 38. The investigation remains pending.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 2
Outcome: violation