Ukrainian soldiers from the Azov regiment who were taken prisoner by Russia after the Mariupol battle and detained before being exchanged said on Monday they were beaten while in captivity.
“In captivity, I saw how our boys were beaten (…) they stripped us naked, forced us to bend over naked. If someone raised his head, they would immediately start beating him,” Denys Tcherpouko, who goes by the nom de guerre “Mango,” said during an online news conference.
“I saw a soldier taken out of our cell and two days later they brought him back. He couldn’t move, his ribs and legs were broken. I don’t know his fate,” Denys Tcherpouko continued.
Another former prisoner, Vladislav Jaïvoronok, going by the nom de guerre “Wikipedia”, claimed that he was not fully treated for the wound he received during the fighting in Mariupol, but “just left him alive so that we can live until such time as we can be interchanged”.
Soldiers of the Azov Regiment
He claims to have observed cases of “serious torture”. “Some had needles stuck in their wounds, others were tortured with water,” he charged.
“There was strong psychological pressure. We had no contact with our loved ones, with the outside world,” he said. These accusations were not verifiable by an independent source.
Vladislav Jaïvoronok and Denys Cherpouko were among the Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered after the Battle of Mariupol, which Russia captured in May at the cost of much destruction.
They were held in the Olenivka prison, in separatist territory in eastern Ukraine, the victim of a strike at the end of July of which Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other, which left dozens dead. The two soldiers are members of the Azov regiment, a military unit hated in Russia and among pro-Russian fighters because it is reputed to be close to ultra-nationalist Ukrainian circles.
Source: BFM TV
