Beyond Humanity: Ukrainians' Testimonies of Torture in Russian Captivity | SEE Ukraine

This article was originally published in the Slovenian weekly Demokracija and has been updated for SEE Ukraine. Author: Iryna Sieidkhanova, Ukrainian journalist and writer

Russia is committing war crimes with impunity: not only does it attack Ukraine's civilian population every day with hundreds of drones and missiles, not only does it abduct Ukrainian children and "re-educate" them into Russians, not only does it destroy everything Ukrainian in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, but it also tortures military and civilian prisoners.

The testimonies of people who have survived Russian captivity are harrowing. It is often hard even to imagine how Russians − people who until recently wanted to be part of the civilized world − are capable of such brutality. Yet this has been Ukraine's reality for more than twelve years. It must always be borne in mind that Russian aggression against Ukraine did not begin in 2022, but in 2014. Back then, people in Donetsk simply disappeared; in broad daylight, Russians abducted Ukrainian activists, members of the intelligentsia, and ordinary people with pro-European and pro-Ukrainian views. The vast majority of these people − or even their bodies − were never found.

Stepan Chubenko

The first victim of the Russians among Ukrainian children was Stepan Chubenko, a teenager from the Donetsk region. The sixteen-year-old and his friends took part in rallies in support of Ukraine's territorial integrity in his hometown of Kramatorsk. One day, he was returning home by train from the capital, Kyiv, and was supposed to change trains in Donetsk, but there, at the railway station, he was seized by Russian terrorists from the self-proclaimed "ministry of security" of the so-called DPR ("Donetsk People's Republic") − because of a yellow-and-blue ribbon on his backpack. Stepan was abducted, beaten in captivity and tortured day after day. They tried to force him to betray his own country, and then they shot him. His mother later said: "Even during the occupation, he walked around in a T-shirt that said 'Glory to Ukraine' and said he wasn't afraid, because he was on his own land." It is important to add that Stepan's mother is an ethnic Russian and a Russian citizen who lived peacefully and happily in Ukraine − until Russia came to "protect" her and her children …

Occupation is not peace

When we talk about captivity and torture, we most often mention soldiers, even though Russians, without the slightest mercy, also torture completely ordinary civilians − regardless of age or gender. That is why Ukraine is trying to tell the world as loudly as possible that occupation is not peace and that Russian occupation is, in many cases, more terrifying than war. It is sometimes still possible to hide from Russian drones and missiles, but once the Russian army settles into a town or village, the real horror begins.

Horror in Bucha

In 2022, the whole world stood in shock when Ukrainian soldiers liberated Bucha near Kyiv. The city was under Russian control for only 33 days, but in that time, Russians tortured and killed 554 people in the Bucha hromada (municipality), 381 of them in the city itself. After the exhumations, it became clear that many of the victims had first been raped, then tortured and killed. The Russians spared neither children, nor women, nor the elderly. Russia, of course, tried to deny the mass crimes against humanity, but all international organizations and the world's media received irrefutable photo and video evidence of Russian atrocities in the territories occupied at the time.

Europe does not understand

In December 2025, protests against the introduction of compulsory military service took place across Germany. According to the media outlet Nexta on X, the slogan of the youth protests was: "Better to live under Putin than to fight." On December 5, 2025, Germany passed a military service law aimed at strengthening its armed forces in response to the growing threat from Russia. In response, Nexta writes, German youth are saying that they do not want to die for their country and would rather choose flight or occupation than war. This situation clearly shows how little Europe actually understands that defeat in war and life under occupation do not simply mean swapping one flag for another. Occupation means killing, torture and rape − and, as the icing on the cake, forced service in the occupier's army.

Plundered Donbas

Russia's actions in the temporarily occupied Donbas already prove that this is so. In 2014, Russians there first tortured and killed all the pro-Ukrainian activists who had not managed to flee, then destroyed the infrastructure, flooded the mines, looted the factories and plundered the towns, and after all that, in 2022, they sent all the men, armed only with outdated weapons, as cannon fodder to storm the Ukrainian army.

Russia up close

In August 2025, almost all the world's media reported on the former mayor of Kherson, Volodymyr Mykolaienko, who spent more than three years in Russian captivity. Russians abducted him in April 2022 during the occupation of the city. FSB officers held him in the city police building, beat him for a long time, tortured him and tried to force him to collaborate. Mykolaienko is a witness to Russian crimes against both the civilian population and prisoners of war. He recounts that they were tortured, beaten, denied medical treatment, not allowed outside for fresh air, verbally humiliated, forbidden to speak Ukrainian and forced to sing the Russian anthem. In one of his first interviews after his release, he said: "I have seen Russia up close, and I am convinced that there is nothing more disgusting, more vile and less like Ukraine than Russia. Sometimes it seems to me that those who have not seen Russia as up close as I have do not even understand what we are fighting against and how very important it is that we do not lose this war."

Yevhen Malyk

On October 23, 2025, thanks to the Ukrainian Embassy in Slovenia, in cooperation with the Government Communication Office and the Centre for European Perspective, a meeting was held in Ljubljana with representatives of the Ukrainian project Break the fake, which is dedicated to countering disinformation and sharing experience with European partners on the challenges of Russia's information war against the free world. The guest of the meeting was Ukrainian soldier Yevhen Malyk, who spent two and a half years in Russian captivity. His experience matches that of Volodymyr Mykolaienko and other freed Ukrainians − both soldiers and civilians. Yevhen said that Russians are extremely inventive when it comes to torture. In addition to physical abuse, beatings and torture, the prisoners were also subjected to severe psychological pressure − they were forced to listen to Russian propaganda and lies about Ukraine and the situation at the front. Yevhen and his comrades were beaten with stun guns, had dogs set on them and were denied medical care. Almost all of them were constantly covered in festering wounds, because their skin never had time to heal between beatings.

Deaths in Olenivka

According to the testimonies of many of those freed, some prisoners could not withstand the abuse and died. People with chronic illnesses were often denied medication, which proved fatal for them. As a rule, Russians cover up such deaths. A well-known case is the terrorist attack in Olenivka on July 29, 2022, which took the lives of at least 53 defenders of Mariupol, while more than 130 were wounded. The Russians tried to blame Ukraine for the attack. Russian propaganda spread the lie that Ukraine itself had an interest in the prisoners' deaths, because they could "reveal uncomfortable secrets." The 2023 report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) confirmed that the explosion was not caused by a HIMARS rocket, as Russia had claimed. That claim was merely a manipulation intended to conceal the scale of Russian crimes against prisoners of war, who are protected by the Geneva Convention, which Russia completely ignores. And that is not all – as early as 2019, Russia revoked its recognition of the competence of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission provided for by Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts.

A civilizational abyss

It must be emphasized that Ukraine, unlike Russia, which has sunk to the level of a terrorist organization, respects the Geneva Convention and guarantees Russian prisoners humane treatment and decent conditions. Moreover, international organizations have free access to Russian prisoners in Ukraine. Russian prisoners of war receive good-quality food in sufficient quantities, have access to doctors and dentists, and can practice their religion if they wish. Even people who came to kill Ukrainians simply for being Ukrainian are not denied contact with their families or the opportunity to earn money. A civilizational abyss separates Ukraine from Russia.

Russia violates the rights of prisoners

Ukraine is working tirelessly to bring home everyone held in Russian captivity, civilians and soldiers alike, and to find all the missing. The Russian side systematically violates international conventions and the rights of prisoners, refuses to disclose information about detainees, blocks access for independent organizations and carries out extrajudicial executions of prisoners of war. In addition, Russia constantly obstructs the exchange process, drags it out, categorically refuses to exchange certain Ukrainian prisoners and sets impossible conditions. Fortunately, however, with the support of its international partners, Ukraine still manages to bring its people home.

Death after returning home

Sadly, not even release from captivity guarantees a peaceful or healthy life at home. Many Ukrainians return home in a state of extreme exhaustion, having lost a great deal of weight, with advanced untreated illnesses, improperly healed wounds and severe post-traumatic stress disorder. There are cases of Ukrainian soldiers dying after their release from the consequences of torture, prolonged starvation or psychological abuse. Dmytro Shapovalov, for example, freed in 2023 and known for a video in which he weeps with happiness because he is eating an apple again for the first time in a long while, died suddenly of cardiac arrest in 2025 at just 33. Or Serhii Dobrovolskyi (43), freed in May 2025, who died just a month after returning home due to health complications. Or Valerii Zelenskyi (57), who survived 36 months of captivity but died after his release of tissue necrosis caused by the inhumane conditions in Russian captivity.

Journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna

Russia also kills journalists. According to Ukraine's Institute of Mass Information (IMI), 134 media workers have been killed as a result of Russian aggression since the start of the full-scale invasion, 15 of them while on duty. According to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), at least 26 Ukrainian journalists are still in Russian captivity. The most high-profile case is that of journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who was abducted, tortured and killed by Russians. She was captured in August 2023, and her parents learned of their daughter's death only in October 2024. For a long time, the Russian side refused to hand over Viktoriia's body, and when it was finally returned, it was unrecognizable, bearing signs of torture and dissection, missing the brain, the eyes and part of the trachea, and labeled as the body of an unidentified man. Only DNA analysis confirmed that it was Viktoriia Roshchyna.

Crimes in the heart of Europe

For more than twelve years, Russia has been violating international law in Ukraine, systematically trampling on human rights and committing crimes against humanity in the very center of Europe. And the world still tries to see Russians as partners and friends. For Ukrainians, it is extremely important that the world finally takes their side and forces Russia to answer for all its crimes − only then is there hope that the horrors the Ukrainian people are enduring will never be repeated anywhere in Europe again.