Held Captive by a Russian Serial Killer
In the late 1990s, the quiet of a small Russian town was shattered when Irina Ganyushkina stumbled into a police station—an escapee from a living nightmare.
Irina revealed to authorities that she was one of five women kidnapped and held captive in a secret underground bunker by a notorious serial killer: Aleksandr Komin, chillingly nicknamed 'the maniac.'
For Irina and the other survivors, freedom was only the beginning. In a country where women's stories of violence are too often dismissed, they now faced a new challenge: rebuilding their lives after unimaginable horror.
In this episode:
-Dariana Gryaznova, human rights lawyer
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Al Jazeera
3 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,273
Here is how things stand on Wednesday, August 20: Fighting Russian authorities have returned the remains of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers, Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on Monday, according to The Kyiv Independent news outlet. Russia's state-run TASS news agency confirmed that Russia returned the bodies of 1,000 soldiers, adding that Ukraine returned the bodies of 19 Russian soldiers. Separately, TASS reported that about 1,370 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in a single day, citing the Russian Ministry of Defence. Al Jazeera could not verify this claim independently. Russian forces dropped 250kg (550 lbs) bombs on the city of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine's Donetsk region, Serhii Horbunov, the head of the Kostiantynivka City Military Administration, wrote on Facebook on Monday. At least two people were injured, and apartments and an education building were damaged, Horbunov said. A Russian drone attack on an ambulance injured two emergency workers in the Kupiansk district of Ukraine's Kharkiv region, regional police said in a post on Telegram. TASS reports that a Ukrainian drone attack caused a power outage in Ukraine's Zaporizhia region, according to the governor of Russian-occupied Zaporizhia, Yevgeny Balitsky. The attack did not affect the operation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, TASS later reported. Local officials in the front-line city of Kamianka-Dniprovska in Russian-occupied Zaporizhia reported 'massive' shelling from Ukrainian forces, causing at least six explosions and damaging a hospital, according to a TASS report that did not mention casualties. The brother of Vitaly Milonov, a representative in Russia's State Duma, the lower house in parliament, died after being injured 'as a result of military action' in Ukraine's Luhansk region, TASS said. The lawmaker's brother was serving as a volunteer in Russian army intelligence when he was injured, TASS reports. Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app that 52,000 people have been evacuated from Ukraine's Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions in recent months due to fighting. Peace talks Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 'are in the process of setting it up', Trump said in relation to a proposed bilateral meeting between the two leaders. Trump made the comment in a radio show a day after he met with Zelenskyy and several European leaders at the White House. Switzerland would be ready to host Putin for peace talks, despite an existing arrest warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court, the country's foreign minister, Ignazio Cassis, said. Trump provided details to Fox News on the nature of potential US involvement in security guarantees for Ukraine, saying that US support would probably be 'by air', whereas European countries 'are willing to put people on the ground'. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed US air support was 'an option and a possibility', but, like Trump, did not provide details. 'The president has definitively stated US boots will not be on the ground in Ukraine, but we can certainly help in the coordination and perhaps provide other means of security guarantees to our European allies,' Leavitt told a news briefing. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte discussed security guarantees for Ukraine in a phone call on Tuesday, the Turkish presidency said in a statement. European Council President Antonio Costa said that the process to make Ukraine a member of the European Union needs to advance, and Europe has to be part of future peace negotiations alongside Ukraine, Russia and the United States. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that India was profiteering on its purchases of Russian oil. 'This… Indian arbitrage – buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product has just sprung during the war – which is unacceptable,' Bessent said. Putin discussed his recent meeting with Trump in Alaska on a call with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kremlin said.
Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- Al Jazeera
The Alaska summit was a spectacular distraction
Say you are the president of the United States and the relationship with a significant chunk of your political base has become less than blissfully harmonious. What do you do? Well, one option is to stage a summit, accompanied by much fanfare, with the president of Russia, ostensibly in order to end that country's war in Ukraine. And this is precisely the manoeuvre that was pulled by US President Donald Trump, who on Friday rolled out the red carpet in Alaska for his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The short-lived encounter was ultimately anticlimactic, with Trump offering the incisive assessment that 'There's no deal until there's a deal.' Fox News reported that Trump had rated the much-anticipated meeting with Putin a '10' out of 10 and that he particularly 'appreciated the Russian president's comments when he claimed he would not have invaded Ukraine had Trump won the 2020 presidency'. Fox went on to add that neither head of state had bothered to specify the 'reasoning behind these comments'. At any rate, the no-deal talks constituted a convenient distraction from current intra-MAGA strife, which owes to a couple of factors. There is, for example, the matter of the files relating to the late Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019. When US Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed Trump in May on the Justice Department's review of the content of the so-called 'Epstein files', she reportedly informed the president that his name appeared therein. Despite having pledged while on the campaign trail to declassify the Epstein files, Trump changed tack earlier this year and angrily dismissed the investigation as a 'hoax'. He went as far as to insult many of his Republican followers as 'stupid' and 'foolish' for continuing to insist that the Epstein details be released. On July 12, the president took to social media with his signature preference for manic capitalisation to berate those demanding declassification: 'We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and 'selfish people' are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.' And yet this is not the only headache facing the 'PERFECT Administration' from within Trump's own MAGA base, many of whose prominent members have become vocally critical of Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip, which Trump persists in aiding and abetting. The genocide, which will mark its two-year anniversary in October, has officially killed nearly 62,000 Palestinians thus far – although the true death toll is undoubtedly many times higher. Apparently, Israel's behaviour was entirely palatable to much of the US political establishment when it simply consisted of unending massacres, slaughtered and mutilated babies, bombed hospitals, and razed neighbourhoods. Now that mass starvation has been visibly added to the genocidal mix, however, Israel seems to have crossed a red line even among formerly staunch devotees. As per Gaza's Ministry of Health, the death toll from malnutrition has hit 251, including 108 children. Images of skeletal Palestinians have flooded the internet, and the United Nations World Food Programme has categorised food shortage in Gaza as 'catastrophic'. Furthermore, according to the UN, the Israeli military has killed at least 1,760 Palestinians since late May alone, as they sought aid, including at sites run by the nefarious so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Backed by the US and Israel, the GHF has not only served Israel's plans for mass displacement and forced eviction of Palestinians; the aid distribution hubs have also functioned as a sort of one-stop shop for indiscriminate killing – which, after all, is the whole point of genocide. And while Trump has intermittently chided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the disagreeable optics of the whole spectacle, it has not been sufficient to appease the scrutiny of the likes of right-wing US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a traditional ally of the president known for such antics as wearing a hat imprinted with the words 'Trump Was Right About Everything!' In a social media post last month, Greene – a leading figure in Trump's MAGA movement – was unexpectedly explicit in her condemnation of 'the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza'. Other MAGA fixtures like far-right influencer Laura Loomer – a self-defined 'proud Islamophobe' and general bona fide sociopath – wasted no time in responding to Greene's post: 'There is no genocide in Gaza.' Anyway, political tensions and infighting were at least temporarily removed from the spotlight by the Trump-Putin extravaganza in Alaska. It's hardly the first time the old art of distraction has come in handy – Trump's pal, Netanyahu, is the master of this trade. His commitment to waging genocide in Gaza has more than a little to do with his desire to stave off domestic opposition and avoid dealing with the assorted corruption charges in which he is presently embroiled. And while the Alaskan red-carpet stunt provided little to write home about, distraction may yet prevail as folks ponder what the hell that was all about. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Al Jazeera
5 days ago
- Al Jazeera
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,268
Here is how things stand on Friday, August 15: Fighting Ukrainian drones struck two Russian cities in attacks that injured at least 16 people, local authorities said. Thirteen people were wounded, two seriously, when a drone struck an apartment building in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, and three civilians were wounded in the city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine. The Ukrainian military said its drones hit a Russian refinery in the Volgograd region overnight, causing huge fires. Russia's Defence Ministry said Russian forces captured the settlements of Shcherbynivka and Andriivka-Klevtsove in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. Ukrainian troops have stabilised an area of eastern Ukraine where Russian forces had made a sudden push this week to pierce Ukrainian defences, the Donetsk region's Governor Vadym Filashkin said. Ukraine said small groups of Russian infantry had thrust some 10 kilometres (six miles) towards its main defensive line near the town of Dobropillia, raising fears of a wider breakthrough on the front line that would further threaten key Ukrainian cities. The Russian advance, coming as United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are due to meet in Alaska on Friday, appears aimed at pressuring Kyiv to give up land in return for peace with Russia, observers said. Alaska summit Trump said he believes Putin is ready to end his war in Ukraine, speaking on the eve of Friday's summit between the two leaders in the city of Anchorage, but a peace deal would likely require at least a second meeting involving Ukraine's leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump and Putin will meet face-to-face on Friday before holding a joint news conference, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said. Trump will go into talks with Putin hoping to achieve a halt to the fighting in Ukraine, but a solution to the war will take longer, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. Putin said the US was making 'sincere efforts' to halt the war in Ukraine and suggested Moscow and Washington could agree on a nuclear arms deal as part of a wider effort to strengthen peace. Putin said 'in order to create long-term conditions for peace between our countries, and in Europe, and in the world as a whole', there could be agreements reached 'in the area of control over strategic offensive weapons'. The Kremlin warned it would be a big mistake to predict the outcome of the upcoming summit, the state-run Interfax news agency reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were no plans to sign any documents following the summit. The talks in Alaska between Trump and Putin present a viable chance to make progress on ending the war in Ukraine, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office said in a statement. Military aid Zelenskyy said he had a detailed discussion on possible security guarantees for Ukraine during a 'productive meeting' with the United Kingdom's Starmer. Zelenskyy said Kyiv had so far secured $1.5bn from its European allies to buy US weapons as part of a mechanism – the NATO Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List initiative – that he said 'truly strengthens our defence'. French President Emmanuel Macron said Trump expressed a willingness to European leaders on Wednesday that the US and other allies should be part of giving Ukraine security guarantees to end Russia's war in Ukraine. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) did not monitor the uses of 5,175 Starlink terminals sent to Ukraine, with nearly half of the operational units ending up in areas fully or partly held by Moscow, according to a report by the agency's internal watchdog. Prisoners of war The United Arab Emirates has successfully mediated a new exchange of captives between Russia and Ukraine. Some 84 captives were released from each side, bringing the total number exchanged through UAE mediation to 4,349. Ukraine brought home 84 prisoners of war that included 51 civilians, Ukrainian officials said, at least one of whom had been held for more than a decade. Regional developments Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during an official visit to Pyongyang, the Russian parliament said. Volodin, a close ally of Putin, conveyed greetings from the Russian leader and thanked Kim for North Korea's support of Russia's military campaign in Ukraine. Economy Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko ordered a review of all licences to mine strategic minerals in the country, as part of a broader effort to help the war-ravaged economy and secure new investments under a minerals deal with the US.
