The Truth About Ukrainian War Crimes Against Donbass Civilians
13:54 GMT 21.07.2023 (Updated: 15:09 GMT 21.07.2023)
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Evidence of Ukraine's torture – which has become nothing short of a new norm since the illegitimate 2014 coup – is continuing to pile up. Pavel, a member of the youth organization "Anti-Fascist Committee of Mariupol" tells Sputnik his story.
"Why? Because I had my own opinion!" says Pavel, when asked why he was detained by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) in September 2014 and held captive until November 2014.
"I did not accept that their Bandera [Stepan Bandera, a WW2-era Ukrainian Nazi collaborator – Sputnik] was almost higher than the Lord. This is downright wrong. And so many people died because of this plague!"
Azov's Neo-Nazi Cleansing in Mariupol
Pavel, then a small coffee shop owner, was 23 when Ukraine was subjugated to an ultra-nationalist junta that forcibly ousted then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014.
The young man immediately joined the "Anti-Fascist Committee of Mariupol", a local youth organization engaged in humanitarian work. On May 11, 2014, the Eastern Ukrainian city held a referendum on the future of the breakaway Donbass republics which Pavel helped organize in his district.
In June 2014, the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion* seized Mariupol and launched political cleansing. Those suspected of any sympathies for Russia were arrested and detained at Ukraine's secret prison at the Mariupol Airport. It was called "The Library", while the detainees were mockingly referred to as "books" by Ukrainian nationalists. The SBU supervised the "black site."
Secret prison at the airport of Mariupol
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Understanding that his freedom and life were at stake, Pavel planned to move to Donetsk and continue his activist work from there. However, in September 2014, he was betrayed by none other than his mother-in-law. She informed Azov militants that Pavel was a pro-Russian activist. The man recalled with bitterness how she deceived him into staying at home so that the neo-Nazi thugs could easily grab him.
"I went outside to smoke and saw a suspicious car driving," he said. "There was something that confused me. The only thing I managed to do was to go back into my apartment, and that's it. I was put face down on the floor; and then face down on the ground and then quickly thrown into the car. They put a bag on my head and took me to the airport."
Torture by Water, Pills, and Shooting Over Head
While at the airport, Pavel was placed into a cooling chamber. It was unbearably cold there, especially given that the man wore only a T-shirt, shorts and slippers. He spent three days trying to warm himself by rolling up pieces of newspaper into balls and putting them under his T-shirt.
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After that Pavel was taken for interrogation.
"I remember they took me out of the cooling chamber and forced me to take pills, which ones - I don’t know," Pavel said. "And injections were made in the arm, in the vein. And after that everything became cloudy in the eyes, there was a rumble. And they talked so slowly. And before that, I remember that they said that we were traitors and that our family, our families, who are for the Donetsk People's Republic, would face great sorrow for this."
But that was not all. They also forced their captives to drink enormous amounts of water at one time.
"I could drink at one time – under pressure of course – five liters, maybe two five-liter bottles. If you wanted to live, you had to drink."
One should bear in mind that the human kidneys can filter as little as 100 ml per hour. Drinking up to 10 liters of water at once could lead to acute renal failure and, eventually, death.
"[The l]imbs of some [detainees] were stretched; they were tied by their hands and legs and pulled in different directions, as if on a rack," Pavel recalled, adding that SBU agents and Ukrainian nationalists got pleasure from hurting their prisoners.
Ukrainians also entertained themselves by shooting over the heads of the captives at a shooting range.
"After charges were brought against us, we were taken to a shooting range," Pavel recalled. "We were set where targets were usually set. And we had to stand there. And they came to have fun, shooting in our direction. They shot a little above the head, but still one understood that he [could easily die]."
A month before the prison swap, the captives were taken somewhere to a landfill. The Dnepr Regimen was deployed there. It was headed at the time by Ukrainian nationalist Yuri Bereza, notorious for his vow to "burn down Crimea, with all of its residents if needed."
"I remember one mug there," Pavel said. "He wore a Balaklava and had an 'Albina' call sign. We were forced to shout their chants; those who did not shout were forced to dig graves as [nationalists] wanted to execute them."
Three months in the Ukrainian captivity left scars on Pavel's head, a fractured leg, and epileptic seizures.
He was swapped in November 2014 along with other 24 detainees. Presently, Pavel serves in the Russian Armed Forces in the DPR.
Over 1,300 Returnees Subjected to Ukrainian Torture
Pavel's story is not a standalone case. Lots of individuals returning from Ukrainian captivity shared terrible experiences in the Ukrainian torture chambers. Many more cannot tell their stories because they couldn't bear further torture and died.
"Since 2014, when the process of prisoner swaps began, we have always invited observers to be present at our swaps," Daria Morozova, commissioner for human rights in the Donetsk People's Republic, told Sputnik. "At the time it was a person from the OSCE, because the Red Cross did not immediately start traveling with us, unfortunately. And when the first swaps began, we were very horrified by the [health] condition of our women and men, who were brought [by the Ukrainians]."
This prompted the DPR commissioner to start taking all the former detainees to medical institutions, where they underwent appropriate examinations. After that DPR law enforcement agencies interviewed them, and initiated criminal cases against the Ukrainian side, per Morozova.
"From 2014 to the beginning of the special military operation, we have swapped over 1,300 people. Almost all of them were subjected to torture," the DPR commissioner for human rights stressed.
Worsening Situation
Currently, the situation has got worse, according to Morozova, referring to shocking instances of the Ukrainian military torturing, mutilating and killing Russian prisoners of war (POWs) which surfaced during the special military operation.
"Previously, it was largely concealed," she said. "That is, accordingly, in order to prove that illegal methods of interrogation or, in other words, torture techniques were used against a particular prisoner, we had to go through a very long and thorny path with the involvement of forensic experts, law enforcement agencies, and international organizations. Now without any hesitation Ukrainian fighters are posting all this [instances of torture] on the Internet."
Ukraine's abuse of human rights is gaining steam since the West failed to take measures over the past nine years, Morozova underscored. Despite Donbass activists and Russia presenting evidence of Ukraine's human rights violations to the United Nations and other international organizations, the response has so far been lax and improper, according to the commissioner.
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International Organizations Should Hear Truth
The latest UN report placed emphasis on illegal detention and brutal interrogation of civilians by the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies. It's not the first report issued by the UN on the matter, Morozova noted, adding that more and more captives and their relatives are contacting international human rights groups over Ukraine's torture practices.
The commissioner noted that she had recently faced unwillingness of the members of the UN Security Council to listen to her as a speaker from Donbass. According to Morozova, the pro-Western group within the UNSC has taken the stance of seeing no evil and hearing no evil.
"[Nonetheless], our cooperation with international organizations continues. It is clear that as of yet there's been no the proper reaction, but, nevertheless, they cannot refuse to record [these instances of torture] either," the commissioner concluded.
*Azov Battalion is a terrorist organization banned in Russia.
