On his third detention, Andriy was taken by a Russian soldier in a balaclava to the empty basement of what regarded like an agricultural enterprise. He noticed beds, mattresses and folks’s belongings, proof that others had been stored there.
Andriy remembers a soldier with a taser, who mentioned: “You are a Bandera-follower [referring to Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera] because you watch pro-Ukrainian YouTube channels.”
“I said I was watching different sources on my phone, that I didn’t understand the situation and how it all started. I lied a little. I was really scared that he would open Privat24 [a Ukrainian banking app], see that I had transferred 15,000 hryvnia [about £335] to the Ukrainian forces and realise that I was not neutral at all.
“He put me on a couch. My hands were tied to iron bars up above. He tasered me on the head, chest, shoulders and legs. Then he asked me to give him the names of Ukrainian military personnel. I told him they had all left. He beat me again, with a stun gun, and said: ‘Now you will remember everything.’”
Soldiers additionally used waterboarding – pouring water on a rag over Andriy’s head, inflicting him to really feel as if he was drowning – and tortured him with an electrical cable. They switched on the electrical energy, he screamed, then they requested if he remembered. Using the identical tactic as earlier than, he named individuals who he knew had left.
“A few minutes later, the commander came in,” Andriy recollects. “He said: ‘You haven’t seen what we did to the others. They pissed and crapped. We were gentle with you.” They mentioned Russia would proceed to occupy Nova Kakhovka, however insisted: “You will live here and everything will be fine.”
“When I came back home, it was hard for me to speak about what had happened – I couldn’t even tell my wife. I only said we had been taken to a basement. I felt horrible, not so much from pain, but psychologically. I felt as if I had been raped. I’ve lost some of my hearing. I’m almost deaf in my left ear.”
Shortly afterwards, Andriy and his mom managed to depart Nova Kakhovka for an unoccupied a part of Ukraine.
Yevgen – captured at a pro-Ukraine protest
Kakhovka, one other port metropolis on the Dnipro river, was taken by Russian forces across the identical time as Nova Kakhovka. For some time afterwards, the pro-Ukrainian demonstrations held by residents had been tolerated by the occupiers. That was till 3 April, when the final protest was closely repressed by Russian forces, who used rubber bullets and flash grenades.
Yevgen, 30, was one of many protesters. He was handcuffed and left mendacity within the rain, together with three different males and a lady. Then baggage had been put over their heads they usually had been taken to the police station in Nova Kakhovka.
Torture survivors from Kherson region tell their stories
Torture survivors from Kherson region tell their stories
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Torture survivors from Kherson region tell their stories