Two Russian soldiers testify to Ukraine's torture, electrocution
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Ukraine's forces have been performing acts of brutality against prisoners of war.
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A former Aidar (neo-Nazi battalion belonging to the Ukrainian army) prison in Polovynyke. Former prisoners spoke of torture, rape, mock executions in this prison formerly under the control of Ukraine. (Eva Karene Bartlett)
Two eyewitnesses reported to Sputnik that Ukrainian security forces have electrocuted, starved and beaten Russian prisoners of war with hammers.
Vladislav Yegilnitsky, a member of the Donetsk People’s Republic armed forces who had endured Ukrainian torture said that the security forces repeatedly and routinely beat and maimed POWs at a prison which was nicknamed "the Gym."
"They used torture. Their favorite tool was a hammer. They slammed fingers with a hammer and used electric current," Yegilnitsky said.
Another witness, Mikhail Yanko, who is from the Lugansk People's Republic, confirmed that he saw Ukrainians torturing prisoners at "the Gym."
Read next: Human rights violations against civilians, Russian soldiers: Report
In addition to the ongoing torture, the prisoners were underfed; with the soldiers revealing that their ration was a piece of bread no bigger than a matchbox.
The prisoners, furthermore, were kept in an unheated room, Yegilnitsky said. They sought warmth from under the rugs; and when they were going to be tortured, they were called up to a nearby room.
"This went on week after week. They were called up one by one to the adjacent room from where screaming was heard all the time," he said, revealing that Russian nationals dealt with the worst torture while the Ukrainian security agency SBU interrogated the Russian soldiers.
"They were treated differently at different stages but, as far as I know, they were always treated very badly… As to the Gym, they said they had nothing else to fear because it was plain hell," he said.
On Tuesday, a UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry concluded that both sides of the war are responsible for violations of international humanitarian law. The report wrote that Ukrainian armed forces shot, wounded, tortured, and executed Russian prisoners of war, which are war crimes.
In March, a Ukrainian doctor and head of the Mobile Hospital project in Ukraine's army, Gennady Druzenko, called on doctors under his command to castrate Russian prisoners during an interview with channel Ukraine 24.
He said he gave strict orders for them "to castrate all the wounded men because they are cockroaches, not humans."
In April, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov told Sputnik that the Ukrainian military is instilling fear in people by showing footage of Russian prisoners of war (POWs) being tortured.
"One of the means of psychological pressure used by terrorists to achieve their goals is to instill a climate of fear… For this purpose, militants of nationalist units torment Russian prisoners of war by recording torture videos and disseminating these horrifying footage," Syromolotov said.
Graphic footage emerged of Ukrainian soldiers shooting Russians at point-blank range.
In one incident, a video of a Russian soldier being shot in the legs surfaced on the Internet, prompting Russian officials to condemn the incident.
Read next: Kiev tortures Russian POWs, West ignores it: Russia MoD
