Harrowing torture: Ukrainian prisoners suffer severe abuse in Russian captivity

Thousands of Ukrainians who are being held captive in Russia face severe torture, hunger, and psychological abuse, according to the testimony of released prisoners and information obtained by the United Nations and human rights organizations.

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has raged since 2014, escalating significantly in 2022. By early 2022, the war had claimed the lives of over 14,000 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. 

Between February 24, 2022, and February 15, 2024, more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians were killed, and nearly 20,000 were injured, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. 

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed in February 2024 that Russia’s military had killed or injured 444,000 Ukrainian combatants since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine.

The number of Ukrainians held in Russia as prisoners of war is unknown. As of the latest prisoner exchange on Tuesday, Ukraine has recovered 3,300 military personnel and civilians since the war began, according to the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (CHTPOW), a Ukrainian government body.

One such former prisoner is Roman Horilyk, 40, a former Ukrainian National Guard officer who says he endured two years of torture in Russia before being returned to Ukraine this May. 

Photos of the emaciated Horilyk, published by CHTPOW and the Ukrainian project I Want To Live, evoke associations with Nazi concentration camps.

Another example is the story of 24-year-old Maryana Chechelyuk, who was sent in May 2022 for “filtering” after being evacuated from Azovstal in Ukraine to Russian-controlled territories. 

Previously an investigator in the Ukrainian police, Chechelyuk was suspected of having connections with the Ukrainian Armed Forces and was taken captive by Russian forces. She shared that she was constantly beaten, starved, and tortured with cold. She returned to Ukraine on May 31.

Prisoners facing severe torture

UN reports provided to The Media Line indicate that Ukrainian prisoners of war are enduring severe torture. 

According to the report, Russian forces beat prisoners, use stun guns to administer electric shocks, force prisoners to stand in painful positions for long periods, and expose them to cold by making them walk naked and barefoot outside during winter. 

In several facilities, prisoners had to stand still in their cells all day, leading to inflammation and swollen legs.

Guards reportedly force Ukrainian prisoners to learn and sing Russian patriotic songs and the national anthem, recite Russian poetry and propaganda, tell jokes, or imitate animal sounds.

 Several prisoners reported being forbidden from using the toilet and sleeping. Loud music or noises often blare from loudspeakers for prolonged periods, including at night.

 Many prisoners are subjected to sexual violence, including rape, threats of castration, and repeated forced nudity.

On June 26, the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, The Media Line features the voices of a former Ukrainian prisoner, a family member of a Ukrainian soldier in Russian captivity, and two lawyers, who recount the Russian crimes against Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Hartman (a combat nickname) is a Ukrainian fighter who was held in Russian captivity in 2014. At that time, he served in a volunteer combat unit.

“We were encircled, spent several days there, and unfortunately, we couldn’t escape. No one wanted to surrender, but we had many wounded,” he told The Media Line.

Hartman recalled that when the Russians demanded their surrender, the Ukrainian commanders agreed only on the condition that the wounded would be handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

According to Hartman, after some time, vehicles arrived, and they were taken to Donetsk, where he spent four months in captivity.

“At first, they wanted to execute us,” Hartman said. “That was the most horrifying part for me—being led to execution but not actually being executed. They did this three times. The first time was unbearable, but by the third, it felt like a walk.”

Hartman explained that the Russians quickly realized the unit was valuable for exchange, so they spared their lives.“That’s why they beat us in a way that left no marks on our hands and faces, to hide the evidence of torture,” he explained.

“We were never taken outside. We, about 20 people, spent all our time in a small basement shelter, with very little space. There were so few surfaces suitable for sleeping that we had to sleep in shifts for three hours each,” he said.

Starved and beaten while in captivity 

“Throughout our time there, we endured constant beatings and hunger. You can get used to the beatings, but not to the hunger,” Hartman added.

He recounted that the prisoners were fed barley porridge with pebbles mixed in. They were given no plates, only five spoons.

“There was very little time to eat, and only five spoons for all of us. We made makeshift spoons from light fixtures. You had to eat quickly because of the line. To swallow anything, you had to keep picking out the pebbles. You could only manage about two spoonfuls of porridge. We also got a piece of bread in the morning and evening,” he recalled.

Hartman recounted that the prisoners were constantly beaten during interrogations where, together with an investigator, there also was a “special person with a rubber baton.”

“They hit us on the kidneys, back, and legs. But that wasn’t the worst part because the interrogations couldn’t last forever. The worst part was the guards. They were usually drunk. They called the beatings and torture ‘physical education’—making us squat facing the wall as long as physically possible, then hitting our legs with feet and sticks, and making us squat again. This happened at night and lasted as long as they wanted,” Hartman said.He continued to say that the conditions he faced were bearable compared to what others endured:

“I remember a unit of very young guys, about 15 of them. They were released with us. In captivity, all of them had their genitals cut off. After the exchange, about half of them committed suicide.”

During his captivity, Hartman was allowed to call his family three times. This kept him going. Although they couldn’t say much to each other, hearing his family’s voices helped him survive the ordeal.

“We were in complete information isolation. We didn’t understand how we were perceived back home. That was our first question upon release: ‘Who are we? How do they see us?’ It was very important to hear that we weren’t condemned. It turned out we were seen as heroes,” he said.

The time in Russian captivity in 2014 did not deter Hartman, and today he continues to defend Ukraine against Russian forces.

“The previous experience gives strength and understanding of how important it is to move forward and fight against this evil,” he said.

Hartman noted that the conditions he endured were significantly better compared to the circumstances of Ukrainian prisoners now. Two of his friends are currently in captivity.

“Prisoners of war now are held together with regular criminals, facing intense pressure not just from the guards and interrogations but also in their cells. There are frequent cases of sexual violence against both men and women, which I can’t understand. People are constantly tortured with electric shocks. The tortures and perversions are horrific,” Hartman asserted.

Not only abuse led by Putin 

“It’s not Putin giving instructions to torture like this, it’s the people doing it themselves. They have families, children, mothers, and they are capable of such things. This has no right to exist,” Hartman concluded.

Svetlana is the mother of 24-year-old Andrey Bogdan, a member of the Azov Regiment. Based on the limited information Svetlana has, Andrey was convicted as a war criminal in Russia and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

“Andrey decided to join the Azov Regiment in 2019. I saw that he was preparing for it. I understood that he and his comrades were highly motivated, ideological, true Ukrainians, and patriots. I couldn’t oppose my son. I supported him,” Svetlana told The Media Line.

The Azov Regiment, initially established as the Azov Battalion, is a unit within the National Guard of Ukraine. Formed in 2014 as a volunteer militia, it was later integrated into the National Guard.

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Azov Regiment played a pivotal role in defending Mariupol, a city subjected to intense bombardment by Russian forces. 

After enduring weeks of siege, Azov fighters, along with other Ukrainian units and civilians, were captured by Russian forces in May 2022, following the surrender of Azovstal under dire conditions.

While Andrey was at Azovstal, Svetlana received messages a few times from other people’s phones. Andrey assured Svetlana that he was still alive. However, Svetlana knew there was no drinking water, and people had to drink water drained from the radiators.

“The first news about Andrey came in March 2023. A video from the interrogations appeared on Telegram channels. He was so emaciated that if it hadn’t been labeled, I wouldn’t have recognized my child. He looked like a skeleton wrapped in skin. The interrogation videos showed him confessing to his crimes against civilians: that he had killed a civilian. He spoke Russian almost without an accent, though he had never spoken Russian in his life. It was clear they forced him to say it with torture, as he was bruised and beaten,” Svetlana explained.

In attempts to help her son, Svetlana later joined forces with the public organization Freedom for the Defenders of Mariupol and attended meetings of the working group on enforced disappearances.

“They showed me the case file opened for Andrey, which contained all the information I had provided to the representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross. They didn’t tell me anything new. No one told me whether they had access to my son,” Svetlana shared.

In August, she found out that Andrey had been sentenced to 25 years. She saw a video from the courtroom where Andrey looked a little better.

“So, they extracted the testimony they needed from him,” she said.

Anna Lyfar is a Ukrainian lawyer and a Ph.D. candidate in the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. She is working on a dissertation on the legal regime of captivity based on the example of the Ukrainian-Russian war.

As Lyfar explained to The Media Line, according to international law, prisoners of war should be afforded adequate accommodation.

“Every prisoner of war should be given a separate space to be captivated. And in each camp, each prisoner of war should be given food and facilitation conditions. This is not what is happening in Russian captivity. A third of each prisoner’s weight had been lost during captivity. They require urgent surgery or hospitalization,” she explained.Lyfar noted that while it is doubtful that Ukraine offers every prisoner the conditions that are required by international law, the conditions there are still much better than in Russia.

“According to official Ukrainian governmental information, the Ukrainian government spends, on average, the same amount of money on prisoners as on the average citizen. Those in captivity in Ukraine are allowed to work, to have spare time, they can read books, watch TV, they are offered sufficient nutrition, and their camps are equipped according to the international standards,” she said.

Olena Kuvaieva, a lawyer at the Strategic Litigation Center of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union. During the full-scale invasion and now, Kuvaieva and her colleagues have been working on strategic cases—those aimed at changing judicial and administrative practices, mainly through the European Court of Human Rights, but also other international bodies.

“We also dealt with war crimes committed by Russia on Ukrainian territory before the full-scale invasion, covering the period since 2014—the time of the occupation of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea. Of course, this work took on a new scale in 2022,” she told The Media Line.

According to Kuvaieva, exchanges of prisoners of war between Ukraine and Russia have resumed.

“Although they were not frequent enough for a long time. The exchanges depend solely on Russia’s will. And they are influenced by many factors, including the media, although not always positively, as the Russians are not interested in the world seeing their atrocities,” she said.

“Precisely because this is a matter of Russia’s will, we talk so much about the need for political pressure from the international community,” Kuvaieva added.

“Those involved in torture must also be held accountable. Moreover, we can talk about reparations and individual compensations for the direct victims of crimes,” she said.

Kuvaieva emphasized that virtually all forms of Russian captivity are war crimes. 

In her professional opinion, considering that this is a systematic practice, the Russian military command must appear before the International Criminal Court and bear personal responsibility.

JPost