"They waited when I die": Azovstal defenders told about the conditions in Russian captivity

According to Ukrainian prisoners, torture and beating are standard actions from the Russians. Senior Sergeant Maxim Kushnir, who defended Azovstal in Mariupol, was injured by a sniper of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and was captured. Then he was exchanged, he was able to return to Ukraine -controlled territory and tell reporters about the experience. About it writes The New York Times. According to him, the Russians did not want to treat him in the first days of captivity.

He had a broken jaw and gangrene. "The first three or four days they did nothing. They waited until I die," Kushnir said. According to Kushnir, Ukrainian prisoners always return home with thin and bearded, and Russians from Ukrainian captivity go home fattened and shaved. "Compared to us, they look good," the Ukrainian military said. At the end of June 2022, the sergeant Kushnir and other wounded from Azovstal was loaded on buses and taken to the advanced exchange.

Returning home, he underwent a few operations and learned to speak again for a few months by training scarring in the back of the throat. As Alexander Romanceov told from the Center for Civil Liberties, a bad attitude towards prisoners of war is classic actions by Russians. 32-year-old Dr. Yurik Mkrtchyan, who was also captured in Mariupol and then released from exchange, said that he was still concerned about the condition of the wounded, including people with amputated limbs.

"These were just boys who defended our hospital. Most of them are still in captivity and I see this justification or explanation. They are already disabled, they can't fight, there is no reason to keep them in prison," he said . . Dr. Mrtchyan described how the newcomers had to run through the way of prison guards who beat them with sticks - the ritual of the Didovshchina, known as "reception".

He remembered how he escaped, lowering his head, through the flow of blows and saw a friend on the ground for imprisonment. According to him, the soldier was dead. 45-year-old Maxim Kolesnikov told that he was tortured and beaten. The beating lasted daily for a month. According to him, the guards used rubber sticks, plastic pipes, wooden rulers and ropes with nodes or just pushed prisoners.

We will remind that the Russians told reporters how they were captured during the counter -offensive of the Armed Forces. It is reported that in Kramatorsk among the prisoners were both professional Russian military and mercenaries, mobilized, as well as prisoners of Russian prisons. In addition, the Ukrainian soldier told how the Armed Forces counter -offensive. According to the sergeant of the 68th Brigade of the Armed Forces, he wants to take part in the Victory Parade.