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Hryhorii Sryotenko: 15 stab wounds and a 12-year term

Viktoriia Pavlenko was asleep when her former partner burst into her Kerry bedroom, pinned her down and attacked her with a long kitchen knife. Hryhorii Sryotenko stabbed her 15 times. She survived because his son heard her cries and intervened.

Published 31 July 2026 · Remigration Ireland case ledger
15Stab wounds
18 yearsHeadline sentence
14 yearsSentence imposed
12 yearsEffective custody

The attack in her bedroom

On the morning of 13 January 2024, Sryotenko entered Pavlenko’s bedroom at Banna Beach Holiday Homes in Ardfert, Co Kerry. The former couple had separated in November 2023 but were still living in the same house.

Pavlenko awoke to find him sitting on her and holding a knife. He demanded that she tell him the “truth” about a supposed lover. She had repeatedly denied being unfaithful, but he had developed what his own barrister called an unshakeable and incorrect belief.

Sryotenko repeatedly stabbed Pavlenko in the face and body. The court recorded 15 wounds to her face, neck, shoulder, hands and chest. One neck wound reached the muscles over her windpipe; another penetrated the chest cavity. His son heard Pavlenko’s cries, entered the room and stopped the attack. The sentencing judge said her survival was a matter of luck and credited that fortuitous intervention.

Life-threatening and disfiguring injuries

Pavlenko was taken first to University Hospital Kerry and then to Cork University Hospital for surgery. She spent weeks in hospital and months recovering and completing rehabilitation exercises. The court described the injuries as life-threatening and disfiguring.

In her victim impact statement, Pavlenko said she and her daughter had fled Ukraine in 2022 looking for safety. Ireland had given them peace and tranquillity. The knife attack in the place where she slept destroyed that safety.

The final conviction

Sryotenko admitted the stabbing during Garda interviews but initially denied that he intended to kill Pavlenko. In October 2025, however, he pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to attempted murder. That plea, not his earlier denial, is the final adjudicated position.

He had also been charged with false imprisonment, assault causing serious harm and producing a knife during the dispute. The reports reviewed identify attempted murder as the conviction. This file does not misstate the other or superseded charges as additional convictions.

How the court reached 12 years

Mr Justice David Keane treated the sustained violence, severity of the wounds, use of a long kitchen knife and attack inside the victim’s home as aggravating. The past intimate relationship was itself an aggravating factor under section 40 of the Domestic Violence Act 2018. The judge also described the offence as a breach of trust.

The defence said Sryotenko was a trained former soldier who believed he had suffered psychological damage during military service. The judge noted that his claimed mental-health and memory difficulties lacked supporting collateral history and that any such issues had not been addressed before the offence.

The guilty plea was the most significant mitigating factor. The judge also credited Sryotenko with having no previous convictions in this jurisdiction. He selected an 18-year headline, imposed 14 years and suspended the final two years for two years. The result was 12 years in custody, backdated to 15 January 2024.

Nationality and residence: the limits of the record

Court reporting identifies Sryotenko as Ukrainian and says he came to Ireland in 2022 to escape the war. It gives his address as Banna Beach Holiday Homes and says he met Pavlenko here when they were neighbours. His wife remained in Ukraine, and the court heard he believed he could return there after prison.

Some reports call him a refugee, but the material reviewed does not establish his precise statutory permission, any protection decision, an asylum chronology, illegal entry or a removal outcome. None is asserted here.

Chronology

Public-cost benchmark

Twelve nominal custodial years at the Irish Prison Service’s 2024 average annual cost of an available, staffed prison space, €99,072, produces a gross benchmark of approximately €1,188,864.

This is arithmetic, not a Sryotenko-specific bill. Actual cost depends on custody already served, remission, release arrangements and annual rate changes. It excludes emergency treatment at University Hospital Kerry, transfer and surgery at Cork University Hospital, weeks of inpatient care, rehabilitation, Garda work, prosecution, courts, interpretation and legal aid. Free legal aid and a court interpreter were reported, but no case-specific amounts were published.

Sources

Record checked: 31 July 2026. No published conviction appeal or immigration outcome was located.