Ukraine · Kyiv and Kharkiv · 2018–2024 · Solved / adjudicated

The 2018–2024 Kyiv and Kharkiv Serial Murders

In May 2025, the Holosiivskyi District Court of Kyiv sentenced an Uzbek national to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of 11 murders committed over six years, an attempted murder and robbery offenses. Crime by Region uses the 11 court-proved killings rather than larger claims that have appeared in later retellings.

Editorial Ukraine artwork used for the 2018–2024 Kyiv and Kharkiv serial murder case file
Victim-aware note: Court and prosecution reporting says the victims included three women and eight men, many of them people without stable housing. This page avoids graphic descriptions and does not turn individual victims from one adjudicated series into separate case-count entries.
StatusSolved / adjudicated — life imprisonment imposed May 2025
CategorySerial murder / robbery / attempted murder
LocationsKyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine
PeriodFebruary 2018 – January 2024
Convicted person38-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan; official reports did not name him
Judicial count11 murders, plus one attempted murder

A six-year series

According to the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office and the Prosecutor General's Office, the man convicted in 2025 killed 11 people between February 2018 and January 2024. Prosecutors said the victims were three women and eight men. Many were people without permanent housing whom he met before the crimes.

The prosecution did not rely on a press nickname or a generalized “serial killer” label to establish the case. The court result was tied to specific murder, robbery and attempted-murder counts. That distinction matters because later media material has attached broader claims to the offender; those claims are not substituted here for what prosecutors proved in court.

The January 2024 arrest

The breakthrough came after the killing of a flower-shop employee in Kyiv's Holosiivskyi district in January 2024. Investigators detained the man in connection with that crime. Prosecutorial accounts say he then described earlier killings in detail, which investigators worked to verify against unresolved cases.

Some crimes were difficult to reconstruct because victims' bodies had been found without an immediately clear account of what had happened. The later prosecution therefore depended on connecting the accused person's statements with independent investigative evidence rather than counting confession claims automatically.

From Kharkiv to Kyiv

Public reports on the judgment say the earliest proved killing dated to 2018 in Kharkiv, where the man was then working. Subsequent offenses occurred across the six-year period, including in Kyiv. The case ultimately joined those events into a single prosecution rather than treating the series as unrelated local files.

The defendant's nationality is included because it is part of the official court reporting, not as an explanation for the crimes. Crime by Region does not infer motive from nationality, housing status, or other personal characteristics.

Trial and life sentence

On May 2, 2025, the Holosiivskyi District Court of Kyiv imposed life imprisonment. Prosecutors said the court found the defendant guilty of intentional murders and robberies under Ukraine's Criminal Code and also established an attempted murder in which the intended victim survived.

The 11-murder total is the figure used throughout this dossier because it is anchored to the conviction. Even where a convicted person has spoken about additional violence, an admission alone is not treated as another proved case without equivalent corroboration and legal or investigative support.

February 2018: prosecutors place the beginning of the proved six-year murder series.

2018–2023: additional killings later linked in the prosecution occur in Kharkiv and Kyiv.

January 2024: the man is detained after the killing of a flower-shop employee in Kyiv; investigators subsequently connect him to earlier cases.

May 2, 2025: the Holosiivskyi District Court of Kyiv sentences him to life imprisonment for 11 murders, attempted murder and robbery offenses.

Current status

The case is classified Solved / Adjudicated. A court convicted the defendant of 11 murders and imposed life imprisonment. The archive does not enlarge that judicial victim count based on later unsupported or confession-only claims, and all 11 killings remain one dossier because they formed one adjudicated series.

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