"Starved and beaten for fun": Ukrainian soldiers share their experiences of torture while in captivity.

National Guard serviceman Larisa Kucherenko, junior sergeant of the 56th separate mechanized brigade Snezana Ostapenko, and military medic Valentina Zubko were captured in occupied Mariupol. The first two detainees were held in Yelenovka, while the third was moved to four different prisons from the moment of her arrest. After their release from captivity, the women recounted the torture and harsh treatment they endured while imprisoned.

This is reported in a publication by the British outlet The Telegraph.

The occupiers detained National Guard serviceman Larisa Kucherenko along with her husband and son in occupied Mariupol in April 2022. As the woman later discovered, they were "betrayed" by neighbors with pro-Russian views.

The Kucherenko family was taken to the village of Starobeshevo, then held in Volnovakha Correctional Colony No. 120 (Yelenovka - Ed.), and from there transferred to Donetsk pre-trial detention center. The occupiers unlawfully held the woman in captivity for seven months until she was exchanged in October 2022. Unfortunately, her husband and son are still imprisoned.

“I want to tell them that I love them. I was in captivity for seven months, but the thought of them being there for three years is unbearable,” the woman reflects.

In captivity, Larisa was forced to stand for over 12 hours a day, beaten, and subjected to psychological torture. For instance, one guard "pinned" the woman against the wall and struck her leg with a metal rod. Despite the wound, he denied her medical assistance.

Larisa and other women were taken to cold showers with bags over their heads. Naked Ukrainian women were made to walk bent over past male observers. At the same time, the captives were forced to sing the Russian anthem.

“We returned to our cells with tears in our eyes, extremely confused, in a panic... It was inhumane. To them, we were nobody. We were constantly told that we were fascists and that if our own people didn’t kill us during the exchange, someone else would. If it was hard for the men, it was even harder for the women. Many of them were not military,” Larisa states.

Larisa's compatriot, military medic Valentina Zubko, was captured at the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works during the siege of Mariupol on May 16, 2022.

“I was prepared for the possibility of dying. I accepted it. But when I was told about captivity, I cried for the first time,” the former captive recounts.

Valentina spent five and a half months in Russian captivity across four different prisons. She, along with 15 other women, was held in a cell designed for two. Instead of a toilet, there was a hole in the middle of the floor.

The medic and the other captives were forced to line up, bend over, and walk between guards who beat them.

“As we walked, each guard tried to hit us. They forced us to lower our heads even further. We were beaten severely for their amusement, even though there were no reasons for it. The guards simply enjoyed it,” the woman notes.

Additionally, the captives had to stand in uncomfortable positions under the watch of guards and perform meaningless physical exercises. In particular, the women could march for hours while standing in the cold. As soon as they made a mistake, they were immediately beaten.

“We fell to the ground and were punished. Every day, your only task was to survive,” she reflects.

In captivity, Zubko was fed porridge mixed with water, which was barely enough to survive. Due to poor nutrition, the Ukrainian women became “walking skeletons.”

Another Mariupol resident, junior sergeant of the 56th separate mechanized brigade Snezana Ostapenko, was captured at the Azovstal plant. The captive was held in Yelenovka colony, where she witnessed a war crime committed by Russians against Ukrainian prisoners of war on the night of July 28-29, 2022.

“Long before the explosion, the guards suddenly disappeared. They were usually nearby, but this time they were not. We all noticed this and found it suspicious,” the woman recounts.

During interrogations, the former serviceman was beaten with sticks and subjected to electric shocks and electric cables.

“During interrogations, if I answered differently than they wanted, I was shocked,” Snezana Ostapenko shares.

To deprive the captives of sleep between interrogations, the occupiers played the Russian anthem continuously. Additionally, the guards regularly held knives to Snezana's neck or took her outside to show her “the grave.”

The occupiers constantly spread fabricated news among the captives about Ukraine's defeat. They told Ostapenko that there was nowhere to return to and no chance of release.

“The guards told us: ‘We feed you just enough to keep you from dying.’ It felt like they were maintaining our lives and nothing more. They were trying to slowly starve us,” the woman believes.

The ZMINA Human Rights Center, together with Ukrainian and international partners, documents enforced disappearances, detentions, and abductions of civilians in temporarily occupied territories. If your relatives are missing or you fear they may have been abducted, please write to our email address [email protected]. Our representative will contact you.

The information obtained with the consent of the applicant will be used for appeals to national and international investigative bodies, as well as international organizations to include information in periodic reports, particularly to the UN Committee Against Torture, the Independent International Commission of the UN to Investigate Events in Ukraine, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, the International Criminal Court, etc., for documenting and further investigating war crimes committed in Ukraine and bringing the perpetrators to justice.