The Kremlin torturer. Why Russia throws captive Ukrainians in prisons in violation of all conventions

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Reflections in the Red Cross cafeteria

An experienced editor knows: no one wants to read about torture. Yes, it breaks your heart, it's horrible, it shouldn't be happening in the 21st century — but it's old news. What else is there to say about it?

Even I have a confession to make: I have only been dealing with the torture of Ukrainian prisoners for three years. Although the torture of Ukrainians started at least as far back as 2014, it was seen as just another example of the abuse inherent to Russian prisons, where Muslims are tortured for being Muslim, political prisoners are tortured for their politics, and Ukrainians are tortured for being Ukrainian.

When Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, several Ukrainian and Russian human rights activists united in a low-profile association in order to gain a better understanding of what was happening in prisons and POW camps, why Ukrainian civilians were disappearing and where they were taken, who among the Ukrainians attempting to flee occupation had failed to pass Russian screening, and what could be done about all of it. Our group has three dozen members, and there are at least five such groups. Despite the low visibility, they are effective.

Our work requires secrecy and tact. Try finding a lawyer in Crimea who is not a snitch, for example. Try finding an arrested Ukrainian volunteer or Donbas war veteran in the occupied territory. Try helping him without revealing yourself — because in the eyes of Moscow’s prosecutors, you are a foreign agent, an undesirable organization, or worse, the coordinating headquarters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Try doing all of the above in one go, and try doing it without compromising anyone still on the ground inside Russia: lawyers, defense attorneys, and volunteers, who write letters, send food packages, and transfer money to the accounts of Ukrainian soldiers convicted in Russia for God knows what.

And while you're at it, avoid falling out with the International Committee of the Red Cross. Because this organization should in fact be doing all those things — but they aren't, for a myriad of serious and utterly frivolous reasons. Fat, lazy, and completely indifferent cats enjoying the marvelous ICRC headquarters in Geneva, with its delicious and cheap cafeteria and a breathtaking view of the Alps.

And then try surviving the confusion, anger, pain, and loathing after sitting down with the UN women's rights committee, which is just across the street from the Red Cross. You make an appointment with them two months in advance. Ukrainian lawyers prepare cases on abuse and sexualized violence against women in the occupied territories, full of details that turn your hair gray. They bring both hard copies and USB drives.

What do we want from the committee? Engagement. Investigations. A UN-endorsed report at least. We'll do the rest ourselves: with the report, we can go to international courts. It doesn't matter that we actually wrote the report ourselves; the UN women's rights committee can feel free to appropriate it; moreover, we are inviting them to do so, as we need a document we can cite. Meanwhile, they will continue to receive their increased salary in Geneva and a lifelong salary increment even after they stop working for the UN.

And so we arrive, the Ukrainian lawyers and I — colleagues, thank you for having me, despite my Russian passport. A girl comes out to meet us — supposedly an important official of the committee. And where does she take us? To the cafeteria. In the middle of a lunch break. Because somehow it just so happened that there was no other room in the huge building. All right. We've got an hour. Lawyers pull out case after case and shed light on terrifying crimes. We even brought our own interpreter. Interpreting takes time. The girl, Sarah, glances longingly at the buffet. I try to be polite: “Sarah, I have an extra pen and pad, would you like me to share it with you?” “No thanks, it's my last day of work anyway. My mandate runs out today.”

Not that I'm complaining. Who am I to complain? I'm used to it. And the Ukrainian lawyers are used to it. And all the Ukrainians are used to it. And so are you. More torture. More violence. No one bats an eye anymore. Not even the people who are paid to do so.

Who gave the order?

The Wall Street Journal, one of the world's most credible newspapers, has published a major investigation into the torture of Ukrainian POWs in Russian pre-trial detention centers and penal colonies.

And it's not “just another impressive investigation.” True, it describes the harrowing methods of torture used on Ukrainian prisoners, the techniques employed by prison guards, the disabling of video cameras, the balaclavas — all the things it feels so wrong to casually list. But the authors' main point is different: three former FSIN officers have given testimony to International Criminal Court (ICC) investigators. What does that mean in simple terms? This means that Europe is preparing a war crimes tribunal. A tribunal on Ukraine. After February 2022, at least a dozen FSIN employees left Russia because of their views. As far as I know, more than three former guards are willing to testify.

What do the former Russian prison employees say? They say that instructions to treat prisoners with particular cruelty — and to torture them — were given by the heads of regional FSIN departments.

In turn, the heads received the order from the director of the Federal Penitentiary Service. So who instructed the director of the FSIN? What does FSIN have to do with POWs in the first place? Soldiers — prisoners of war — are supposed to be outside the purview of the penitentiary service.

And that's the heart of the matter. Looking for Putin's hand behind any grandiose abomination is the pitfall of many a conspiracy theorist, but here, it is most definitely present. The directive came from Vladimir Putin himself.

And here's why. The Russian Federation officially recognizes the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (the protocol was ratified in 1998). Under the Convention, POWs should fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense, not the prison service. According to the rules Russia agreed to, standard procedure should be as follows: FSIN completely vacates one of its civilian penal colonies, removing prisoners and personnel; POWs are transported there, and the military police step in as guards. The Ministry of Defense should also be in charge of logistics, and the International Committee of the Red Cross ought to handle all humanitarian matters, including correspondence with relatives.

So who gave the order to send POWs to active pre-trial detention centers and prisons? Who handed them over to prison authorities? Who dared to blatantly violate the Geneva Convention signed by Russia itself?

The director of FSIN could not have done it. And why would he bother? The Ministry of Defense couldn't either. The more prisoners it has, the better: more funding, more rewards, and a greater scope of activities. Military intelligence can have a field day with them.

So there is your answer: It could only have been Putin, as the state security services report directly to him. Why transfer them to prisons? Prison guards know their way around a torture chamber — while soldiers don't, and might even become squeamish about it. So Putin handed them over. And ordered the abuse.

What his reasons for torturing them were is a question for Putin's psychological analysts.

Not only soldiers

Far from all Ukrainians in Russian captivity are military personnel. Three other groups of Ukrainian nationals are being held in Russia's pre-trial detention centers and penal colonies.

— Civilian abductees. These are men and women captured during the occupation and taken to Russia. Their places of detention are usually classified. In the first year of the full-scale war, Russia's military prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Defense denied having them in custody; now the standard reply to inquiries from relatives and lawyers is “detained for opposing the special military operation.”

The exact number of such prisoners is unknown. Many have been out of reach since their disappearance and are most likely dead. Some 2,000 have been taken to Russia, while other abductees are kept in detention centers in the occupied territories.

A vivid example is Victoria Andrusha, a young math teacher from the Chernihiv Region who was kidnapped in March 2022 from her native village and kept in pre-trial detention centers in Russia's Kursk and Bryansk regions for an unknown purpose. Andrusha was returned to Ukraine as part of a POW exchange in October 2022, and she shared a detailed account of her captivity:

“I was brought to the detention center. It had a procedure called admission. I was told I had to just 'get through it.' They took away our civilian clothes and gave us prison garb. They twisted my arms behind my back, pushed my head down, and took me in for questioning. I was bent almost to my knees, unable to walk properly. The interrogation was attended by detention center guards and special forces officers. They didn't really ask me anything — just told me I was a spotter and was under investigation. They hit me on the head. Then they took me to a corridor without CCTV cameras and began beating me up and threatening: 'We will burn you!' 'We will do to you what your soldiers did to women in Donetsk.' They used tasers and batons. At the time, I wished I would die rather than go through that. You can't resist. You have no control over the situation, and you're in the hands of these people. They can do whatever they want to you, and they want you to know it. I kept telling myself that it would end eventually.”

Notably, civilian abductees are hardly ever included in POW exchange lists.

— Those who failed to pass Russian security screening or were captured in the occupied territories as combatants but had left the Armed Forces of Ukraine before the full-scale war. Donbas war veteran Vitaliy Manzhos was captured in the Zaporizhzhya region. He was brutally tortured but eventually escaped and reached Europe.

“Five men came in, put a bag over my head again, and started f*cking me up as hard as they could. Then the commandant of Makhachkala OMON [riot police] came into the basement and asked: 'Are you an ATO [2014-2018 Anti-Terrorist Operation] fighter? You're about to be introduced to Boris.'” Boris turned out to be his handgun.

The commandant hit Vitaliy in the face with the gun, knocking him down. Then the commandant started shooting.

“He said it was called the Akhmat Triangle. Two knees and the willy. I had my hands tied behind my back, so I couldn't do anything. He shot me in one leg, then the other, aimed for my groin, but I jerked. The bullet went through my thigh. Then I felt a backpack hitting me in the head. There was another man with a knife, cutting my forearms.”

Vitaliy runs his hand over his skin, covered with dozens of small scars from the palms of his hands to his elbows. He also has bullet marks on his thighs.

“They kept punching and stabbing me, but I wasn't passing out. So they said, 'See? He's definitely SBU [Security Service of Ukraine]. Look at his pain tolerance. He doesn't even yell.' How was I supposed to yell? I didn't even care anymore.”

Mariana Checheliuk, a 22-year-old police officer from Mariupol, was held captive for more than two years in torture detention centers in Donetsk and Taganrog:

“I'll never forget the summer of 2023 when it was +50°C [122°F] in the cell. We were almost all passing out from the heat. They opened the food slot for two minutes to let some fresh air in. I risked moving closer, and in the cell across the hall, I saw a face — emaciated but determined. Those were Azovstal defenders. Their eyes were filled with bitter regret because I was the only woman in the entire detention center. They heard all the abuse against me, but they couldn't protect me.”

Another blood-curdling testimony was given in a Russian court by Natalia Vlasova, a kidnapped shop assistant from the Donetsk Region:

“...At night they brought us to Izolation — a secret prison of the [self-declared] DPR's Ministry of State Security. This place was called a death factory, run by [Vasily] Yevdokimov. They are sadists in the strict clinical sense of the word. Taking pleasure in inflicting pain on a naked, bound woman and doing all sorts of perversions — not everyone is capable of that...They undressed me, tied me up with duct tape, doused me with water, and electrocuted me... Fifteen people came to have sexual intercourse with me...The worst was when they said they knew the preschool my child went to and would bring her a toy with TNT...”

— Ukrainian inmates from several penal colonies in the Kherson Region. As Russia was retreating from the Kherson Region, civilian inmates were transferred to Russian prisons for an unknown reason. There are about 2,500 such inmates. They are now being released, several people a day, as their Ukrainian sentences expire. They try to return home — often without documents, money, or even clothes. You can read more about these kidnappings here.

There is also an eyewitness account from Russian political prisoner Andrey Pivovarov, who was exchanged last August:

“Some [Ukrainian inmates] were scattered across Krasnodar Krai; some were sent further away, but all were brought in through Kuban. They knew in advance they would be transferred: everyone was gathered in one colony and they were transported shortly before Russia's retreat. Prisoners were not allowed any personal belongings. The usual duffel bags were confiscated with promises that they would be brought later on trucks. No one believed these promises, so they tried to sneak in small bags.

They drove through Crimea for more than 20 hours non-stop. Prisoners used plastic bottles to pee. In Melitopol, there was a layover, and everyone was made to run the gauntlet, allegedly for smoking in the vans. They knocked out all personal belongings, including cigarettes, coil heaters, and bags. Those who objected were beaten severely.

Eventually, they arrived in Krasnodar, at our pre-trial detention center on Voronezhskaya Street. FSIN special forces, either Akula or Anakonda, were summoned for the admission of prisoners, and they began to brutally beat up all newcomers. The beatings took place near the entrance hall, and the lawyers of those waiting their turn told their defendants about it. When inmates learned that other prisoners were being beaten near the walls, everyone was on their feet in solidarity. A plea for support flew throughout the corridors, and the cells began to buzz: imagine some 1,500-2,000 people banging on metal doors, again and again.

Naturally, guards and all sorts of officials came running. Their version was that they had brought POWs — not just any soldiers but some sort of death commandos. Unfortunately, local prisoners believed them. The underworld has a strict rule: a decent bloke will never join the military, police, or similar structures. Therefore, prisoner solidarity does not apply to such people (soldiers, former police officers, judges, and so on).

The prison calmed down and the new arrivals were housed in 'huts,' makeshift cell blocks inside the prison yard normally used for quarantines. The administration banned any contact, but of course, introductions soon began, and the prison post was set up. Some of the new arrivals were badly beaten and had their clothes torn. They barely had any essentials — tea, sugar, cups — everything had been taken from them, either in Kherson or Melitopol. Having realized they were looking at their fellow inmates, local prisoners lent them a hand of course. Thankfully, the prison brotherhood has no regard for state borders or directives of the administration.”

What next

Thousands of articles have been written about the cruel treatment of Ukrainian POWs and civilian abductees. Hundreds of stories have been filmed. Have we heard any of it before? We've heard worse.

So why is this topic so hot all of a sudden? Because of The Wall Street Journal. And also because it has become clear: the tribunal on war crimes in Ukraine is imminent, and it will be no joke. And because it has become obvious that it was Putin who ordered the abuse, even if prison guards act like they get paid bonuses for every act of torture — for all we know, they might.

It's also because all wars come to an end. This war may end before the end of the year. And we will finally hear the voices of the maimed and the dead. We will learn the names of the executioners. Someone's neighbors or relatives, someone's classmates or friends. Our fellow countrymen.

And this was unimaginable still not all that long ago.