'Beaten' and 'humiliated': Two Ukrainian soldiers on what it's like to be held captive by Russia

Australia Broadcast Center

3 days ago

Ukrainian soldier Roman has endured physical and emotional trauma most people could never comprehend.
Captured by Kremlin forces in May 2022, the 56-year-old was held in Russian captivity as a prisoner of war for close to three years.
Warning: This story contains details some readers could find distressing, including descriptions of torture.
"They beat me, they humiliated me and finally, they hung me," he told the ABC.
"I thought, 'That's it, I would not wake up again.'
"But God's merciful — I woke up."
He surrendered to enemy forces after the infamous Azovstal steel siege, which gripped the frontline in Mariupol for 80 days during the start of the war.
The fierce three-month battle came to define the brutality of Russia's war in Ukraine, and underlined the resilience of hundreds of outnumbered and outgunned soldiers left defending the steelworks and more than 1,000 stranded civilians.
On the first night Roman was detained, he lost consciousness four times.
"They hung me by the neck on a tree. Only when I lost consciousness did they let me go … they connected wires to me, they put my feet in a basin with water," he said.
"Everything was blurry, the only thing I remember was wires and the basin.
"They beat us, humiliated us, and tortured us. It all depended on how lucky you were."
He spent a month inside a Russian prison in the Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.
Housed within a cell stretching just six metres squared, more than 60 prisoners were crammed inside and sleeping on top of each other, he recalls.
Food was rationed and each prisoner was fed half a ladle of rice and a piece of bread a day.
He was then transferred to the notorious Olenivka prison and was still there when it was hit by a massive explosion in July, killing 54 Ukrainian prisoners of war.
"We could hear an explosion after 11pm. At first, we thought that it was our Ukrainian military firing," Roman recalled.
"We were happy, cheerful. We thought that finally, our guys are here, close to us and they have attacked.
"But the next morning we found out that the Azov soldiers had been blown up."
After the explosion, Roman said soldiers from his unit were forced to clean up the human remains.
"The human flesh was left for our guys," he said.
"The cleaners told us how they had to wash the blood from the asphalt [and] the human flesh that they saw on the metal bars."
Kyiv accused Russia of orchestrating the attack, labelling it a deliberate war crime.
Moscow pointed the finger at Ukraine, suggesting Kyiv attacked its own people with a US-made HIMARS rocket.
It is estimated that 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been captured by Russian forces since Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
According to Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, more than 16,000 civilians are also in Russian captivity.
Under the Geneva Convention, it is illegal to torture prisoners of war for information or use any form of coercion.
There have been more than 60 prisoner swaps since the conflict began, but little has been reported about the lifelong trauma and physical injury the returned soldiers live with.
Roman is still living with back pain, a sore knee and a "damaged" neck from his time as a prisoner.
"There are constant reminders of that time and once I remember, I immediately have huge psychological issues," he said.
Vadim, another soldier who was captured outside the Mariupol steelworks in 2022, is still undergoing rehabilitation for his injuries.
"I was a healthy man before the war and now I feel I am really poorly," he said.
"They beat me, hit me with a taser; they hung me up by my genitals to torture me and get information."
During his two years and eight months in captivity, he lost 40 kilograms — almost half of his body weight — and was transferred to several Russian prisons.
"Every morning, we were taken out of our cells for the morning check-up," he said.
"They blinded us, put us to the wall and began to beat for whatever reason: you are not standing properly, or you are not bending properly."
Vadim and Roman formed a close bond during their time inside Olenivka prison.
The two men couldn't believe their luck when they were released in a prisoner exchange in December.
"It was my belief that helped me during that entire time. My belief in my family, my belief in Ukraine, and my belief in God," Vadim said.
In what is shaping up to be the largest since the war broke out, the latest prisoner swap began on Monday and included the exchange of prisoners under 25 and those severely injured.
It was the only deal Kyiv and Moscow agreed to during the second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul, which have made little progress towards bringing an end to the war.
Over the next few days, both sides will return 1,200 prisoners each and repatriate the bodies of 12,000 fallen soldiers.
Vadim is hoping there is peace in sight, and the pain and suffering soldiers and civilians have endured has not all been in vain.
"There are no words to describe it," he said.
"The brightest memory was after we crossed the border, as if we had seen two worlds.
"There were kind, happy faces waiting for us. All of us had tears."