Yury Tavozhnyansky, a former deputy head of the Kherson Port customs post, was detained on 28 July 2022 after he handed money to Konstantin Reznik (another defendant in the same case). Yury believed that the money was intended for the purchase of food and medical aid. According to the Ukrainian Telegram channel "Poshuk znyklykh" (Search for the Missing), Yury left home to make a phone call and never returned.

After his arrest, Yury Tavozhnyansky was held in the basement of the former Department of the National Police of Ukraine in Kherson on Lyuteranska street. From July to September 2022, in the occupied Kherson region, nine more local residents were abducted, eight of whom became defendants in the criminal case known as the "Kherson Nine" case along with Tavozhnyansky. For two months, they were brutally tortured in the basement to extract confessions. One of the detainees died in August 2022 after being beaten. According to the detained Ukrainians, the man in charge of the basement on Lyuteranska street was an FSB officer with the call sign "Khmuryi," who directed the beatings and personally took part in the torture (he later appeared at one of the court hearings as a classified witness, "Ivanov"). Yury Tavozhnyansky was also threatened with the persecution of his family. Under pressure, he agreed to sign a confession, which he later retracted in court. The criminal case was opened on 6 October 2022. All defendants were formally taken into custody by the Russian-controlled Kievsky District Court of Simferopol on 7 October 2022. Later, Yury Tavozhnyansky, along with the other defendants, was transported to Moscow's Lefortovo Pre-Trial Detention Centre, then transferred to Rostov. In the Rostov Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 1, the Ukrainians were beaten during inspections, struck on the back with sticks, forced to sing the Russian anthem and "Katyusha." After lawyers' complaints, the abuse only intensified. On 29 May 2025, during a hearing of the Southern District Military Court, the lawyers of the "Kherson Nine" reported systematic violence against the prisoners by the convoy.

Yury Tavozhnyansky and the other defendants were charged with terrorism under three articles of the Russian Criminal Code: an "act of international terrorism" (Article 361) and "organization of a terrorist association" (Article 205.4), as well as attempted crime (Part 1 of Article 30).

The defendants in the "Kherson Nine" case were accused of preparing a series of assassination attempts on officials of the occupation "military-civil administration" of the Kherson region and the Russian servicemen guarding them, and of participation in a terrorist association. According to the investigation, the defendants manufactured explosives, surveilled collaborator officials, and attempted to blow them up. None of the allegedly planned attacks were actually carried out. Yury Tavozhnyansky was accused of "conducting surveillance of places visited by and routes of officials of the Military-Civil Administration of the Kherson region and Russian servicemen" from March to August 2022; and, along with four other defendants, of an unsuccessful attempt to detonate an improvised explosive device on a pier where the deputy head of the occupation administration of the region, Aleksey Kovalev, was located in July 2022. The prosecution also claims that Yury twice handed money to other defendants in the case, Konstantin Reznik and Sergey Kabakov. The amounts in question were 5,000 hryvnias (about 120 euros). In court, Yury drew attention to inconsistencies in the case file. He noted that the actions imputed to him took place at a time when he was already imprisoned in the basement. Moreover, the Military-Civil Administration of Kherson region, which Yury allegedly surveilled from March 2022, did not yet exist at that time. Yury Tavozhnyansky and the other defendants quickly retracted their statements in the preliminary investigation stage and stated that they had been given under pressure and physical violence. They also did not confirm the results of the "investigative measures" conducted with their participation during the period when the men were already being held in the basement of the Kherson police department and were being tortured there. Sergey Kabakov and Konstantin Reznik told the court that on 28 July, after lengthy torture, they were brought to meet with Tavozhnyansky, who gave them money, and then taken back to the basement. They wrote statements about participating in an "investigative experiment" under pressure later, on 5 October 2022. Yury Tavozhnyansky stated that he had been in the basement since 28 July, from which he was taken out unconscious in a minibus. The defendants also told the court that during the period from July or August to 6 October 2022, they were forced to take various objects in their hands and were brought to vehicles, and ordered to touch surfaces in order to leave fingerprints on them.

On 30 January 2026, the Southern District Military Court sentenced Yury Tavozhnyansky to 18 years of imprisonment, with the first 5 years to be served in prison and the remainder in a strict-regime correctional colony. Other defendants in the case received sentences of between 14 and 20 years of imprisonment.

Yuri is recognized as a political prisoner. His guilt has not been proven – the confessions were obtained under cruel torture and constitute inadmissible evidence. Many of the prosecution's pieces of evidence show signs of falsification and were obtained during the period when the defendant was being held in detention in Kherson without any procedural status. Yuri was also unlawfully abducted from the territory of Ukraine. The actions of the Russian state with respect to the defendants in the "Kherson Nine" case are grounds for consideration as war crimes.