A Question of Justice: Three Sentenced to Prison for Fatal Attack on Romani Camp in Lviv, Ukraine
09 May 2025
By Judit Ignacz
Seven years after the brutal, racially motivated attack on a Romani camp in Lviv, a verdict has finally been delivered. The Sykhiv District Court has sentenced three of the perpetrators (Roman Kalmuk, Yaroslav Puzhyl, and Andriy Tychka) to prison, with two group members receiving 10-year sentences and the group’s organiser receiving 10 years and 6 months. The verdict can be appealed.
A Preplanned and Coordinated Attack
On the night of 23 June 2018, a group of men armed with wooden sticks, knives, hammers, metal pipes, and chains attacked a Romani camp in a forest near Truskavetska Street, on the outskirts of Lviv. The attack was preplanned and coordinated. The day before, the attackers prepared at the garage cooperative "Bihunok" by assigning roles, weapons, and masks to hide their faces. Their intent was clear: to destroy and eliminate, and they followed through with their plan.
Some of them directly attacked the Romani camp, while others stood guard. During the attack, the perpetrators violently destroyed the tents of the Romani community. One of the attackers pulled a sister and brother out of their tent and stabbed the 10-year-old Romani boy in the thigh with a knife. One gang member stabbed a Romani man three times in the back and chest, while another beat a victim with a hammer. Tragically, one attacker fatally stabbed a 24-year-old Romani man. His name was David Pap.
Following the attack, police detained seven minors (16–17 years old) and the 20-year-old organiser. The prosecutor's office established the involvement of 11 people, opening proceedings for premeditated murder, hooliganism, inciting enmity, and involving minors in a crime. The Pustomyty Court arrested eight suspects without bail; the Court of Appeal left six in custody, and released two under house arrest. In 2019, two attackers were released without punishment.
Justice Served
In court, the attackers showed no remorse. They pleaded guilty and admitted forming the far-right group "Sober and Evil Youth", intentionally targeting the Romani community for elimination through violent means.
In 2023, the Pustomyty District Court in Lviv region sentenced three of the attackers to suspended sentences. On 16 April 2025, the Sykhiv District Court reviewed the case of three additional perpetrators. One was an adult, while the other two were underage at the time of the attack. Judge Oksana Bezpalok delivered the verdict: the adult organiser was sentenced to 10 years and 6 months in prison on charges of murder, hooliganism, and involving minors in criminal activity. His time already served in pretrial detention since 2018 was credited toward his sentence. The other two were sentenced to 10 years each in prison. The defendants were ordered to pay a total of 145,300 UAH in court expenses. The verdicts remain subject to appeal.
Hate Crime and Complicity
This crime was one of at least five brutal attacks on Roma carried out by far-right militias in Kiev, Ternopil, and Lviv in 2018. Yet the National Police stood by and failed to take action against these pogroms. In fact, evidence at the time showed that local authorities and the National Police may have been collaborating with the far-right militias behind the violent attacks.
The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHRPG) exposed a cooperation agreement between the Holosiyiv District Administration and the far-right group C14, which attacked Roma at Lysa Hora in Kiev. KHRPG also reported that unknown individuals visited the Rudne camp just days before the attack there, warning the Romani inhabitants to leave or face the consequences. The district administration service later announced that municipal workers, police, and security “conducted an explanatory operation" with the Roma.
Further evidence showed a video recording of police in Kiev standing by while far-right militia attack Roma, mocking a woman and child fleeing with their belongings, and asking if they planned to eat a nearby dog. Ukrainian police officers are seen casually making conversation with the attackers, watching them pose and chant, "Glory to the nation! Death to enemies!"
After the pogrom of Ternopil, a Romani woman told the ERRC’s monitor on the ground: “I don’t trust the police. The next day, I saw the police officer drinking coffee with one of the guys who attacked our camp. One of the guys who attacked us threatened to even find us underground if we dare to complain to the police”.
On behalf of the attacked Roma, the ERRC and the National Roma Centre took the Ukrainian National Police to court in 2018 for failing to protect Romani communities from racist violence, which amounted to violations of the European Convention on Human Rights and breached many other national and international human rights obligations.
But was Justice Truly Served?
The reality of this spree of violent attacks is that on several occasions groups of masked men, armed with various weapons, intentionally targeted and attacked Romani communities, dragged terrified adults and children from their beds in the middle of the night, beat them, stabbed them, destroyed their belongings, and forced them to flee by setting their homes on fire.
Seven years on, the organiser of one of these pogroms received a sentence of ten years and six months, with credit for time already spent in pretrial detention, meaning he will walk free before his 30th birthday. Meanwhile, they stole David Pap’s chance of ever reaching 30.
Not a single one of these brutal assaults has been officially recognised as a hate crime. Racially motivated attacks against Roma in Ukraine are routinely dismissed as “hooliganism,” with authorities turning a blind eye instead of investigating and prosecuting these acts as hate crimes. The ERRC has long raised this alarm: hate crimes are being downplayed, and Romani lives remain disregarded and systematically devalued within the criminal legal system.
This sentencing marks a significant and long-overdue step toward justice. However, not recognising and denying the racial motive behind violence is not neutrality; it is complicity. Justice for Roma means naming racism, prosecuting it, and ending the impunity.
