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Associated Press
- November 19, 2022 00:48
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Authorities have found 63 bodies with signs of torture near Kherson, Monastyrskyi said. He did not elaborate, saying the investigation into possible war crimes in the region had just begun
For 10 days, Alesha Babenko was locked in a basement and regularly beaten by Russian soldiers. Blindfolded and threatened with electric shocks, the 27-year-old begged them to stop. "I thought I was going to die," he told the Associated Press.
In September, Babenko and his 14-year-old nephew, Vitaliy Mysharskiy, were arrested by Russian soldiers who occupied his village of Kyselivka in Ukraine's southern Kherson region. They had photographed the destroyed tanks and sent them to the Ukrainian army.
Sitting this week on a bench outside his home, Babenko was visibly shaken as he recounted the trauma of being thrown into a car, driven to the city of Kherson and interrogated until he confessed.
As violence escalates in Ukraine, abuses committed by Russia have become widespread, according to the United Nations and human rights groups. The situation is particularly worrying in the Kherson region, where hundreds of villages, including the main town, were liberated from Russian occupation in early November. It was one of Ukraine's biggest successes in the nearly nine-month war, dealing another crushing blow to the Kremlin.
The UN says it is trying to verify claims of nearly 90 cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions in Kherson, and is trying to understand whether the scale of abuse is greater than already documented.
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Ukrainian officials have opened more than 430 war crimes cases from the Kherson region and are investigating four suspected torture sites, Denys Monastyrskyi, Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs, told state television.
Authorities have found 63 bodies with signs of torture near Kherson, Monastyrskyi said. He did not elaborate, saying the investigation into possible war crimes in the region had just begun.
On Wednesday, Associated Press reporters saw the inside of one of these alleged torture sites at a police-run detention center in Kherson.
Russian soldiers appeared to have left in a hurry, leaving flags and portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin scattered under broken glass on the floor. Neighbors described a constant flow of people in handcuffs walking around with bags over their heads. Those who were allowed to leave left without shoes or personal belongings.
Birthday in prison
Maksym Nehrov spent his 45th birthday in prison, arrested by the Russians because he was an ex-soldier.
"The most horrible thing was hearing other people being tortured all day long," he said.
Walking along the corridor of the now empty prison, he recalled that whenever he disobeyed the Russians in some way, they would give him an electric shock on the neck and head.
Throughout the war, liberated Ukrainian villages have revealed thousands of human rights atrocities committed by Russian soldiers. Troops were scattered across the streets of Bucha and Irpin, suburbs of the capital, Kiev, after Russia withdrew in April.
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Rights groups say it is too early to know if abuses in Kherson were on the same level as in other liberated areas, but that it is highly likely.
"In all the occupied areas where we have been able to access, we have documented incidents of torture, extrajudicial killings and torture. And we are very concerned that Kherson will be no different," Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch, told AP.
The group has documented unlawful attacks on civilians, torture and enforced disappearances of civilians in occupied areas across the country.
Since Russian forces withdrew on November 10, residents in the nondescript town of Kyselivka, who endured abuse, are struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives.
After Babenko and his nephew returned home - at a time when his village was still under Russian occupation - he was too terrified to leave the house. He was haunted by what he had endured. While detained, Russian soldiers interrogated him repeatedly, kicking and punching him in the ribs, nose and stomach almost every day, he said.
His young grandson escaped such abuse but was told he would become a Russian citizen and be protected. Both were released after confessing what they had done on video, they said.
But others in their village have not been so lucky.
Two months ago, the godfather of Alla Protsenko's son was taken from his home by Russian soldiers and has not been seen since. Walking through the partially destroyed school where she taught before the Russians turned it into a military base, Protsenko said she has combed the country looking for him, to no avail.
The last time the 52-year-old saw him was on her birthday, a week before he disappeared.
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"I remember him smiling as if to say, 'Hold on, everything will be fine,'" she said. "For me, he is still alive. I can't accept that now (maybe), he's gone."
Translated by: Forca Jashari
