Food for prisoners of war: how Russians surpassed the Gulag practice
“The hunger was so bad that we couldn't think about anything else. There was no more acute despair, no more fear, no more longing for the family, for the children. There was only hunger,” Ukrainian dissident and political prisoner Oksana Meshko recalled the conditions of detention in the Gulag.
“We talked about food all the time. Some of the guys even forced themselves to talk about food only at certain times: an hour before and after meals, so as not to stimulate the secretion of gastric juice,” says Dmytro, a combatant who was in Russian captivity.
More than 70 years have passed between the time of Oksana Meshko's imprisonment in Ukhta and Dmytro's imprisonment in the Russian-occupied territories. But the style of the Russian punishers has not changed: they torture Ukrainians by starvation to break and destroy them.
hromadske spoke to former and current camp inmates to find similarities.
The Geneva Convention is for the noble
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine interviewed former Ukrainian prisoners of war. More than 80% of them complained about the poor quality of food and its shortage in captivity, as well as the fact that it was deliberately withheld. This caused the prisoners to feel physical pain and suffering.
“Torture also consisted of the fact that prisoners were given too little time for meals, food became an instrument of humiliation - it was served in dirty dishes, thrown directly on the floor, etc.”, says Eva Katinka Schmidt, Head of Justice, Freedoms and Civic Space Unit of the Monitoring Mission.
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, adopted in 1929, stipulates that “daily food rations shall be sufficient in quantity, quality and variety to keep prisoners of war in good health and to prevent loss of weight or the development of nutritional deficiencies.”
But the Convention does not specify how much protein, fat, and carbohydrates prisoners should receive per day. The main indicator of poor nutrition is weight loss and deterioration in health.
Soviet skilly in a Russian way
It is unlikely that the Gulag employees recorded changes in the weight of prisoners, but they talked about it. For example, A former Ukrainian political prisoner and MP in independent UkraineStepan Khmara recalled: “When I was going home (after his imprisonment – ed.), the skin was loose on my skeleton.” According to his friends, Vasyl Stus lost more than 15 kilograms during his second imprisonment (5 years).
Ukrainian fighter At the request of the Monitoring Mission, we do not disclose the real names of our interlocutorsDenys lost 34 kilograms in 13 months of captivity, Dmytro lost 14 kilograms in four months, and Oleh lost 26 kilograms in a year.
So, are the Russians now feeding Ukrainian prisoners of war worse than they fed Ukrainian political prisoners in the Gulag in Soviet times?
Doctor of History, Lviv professor Ivan Pater has been researching nutrition standards in Soviet camps.
“The daily ration for prisoners included: 600 grams of barley bread of the worst quality, 20 grams of meat three times a week, various dried vegetables – 150 grams, 15 grams of fat, no flour, salted fish – 60 grams four times a week, barley cereal or chaff – 120 grams, granulated sugar – 20 grams, water, salt – no ration. The caloric content of the daily food of the prisoners is The norm of food for free workers in the relevant jobs was up to 4300 kcal1200 kcal”.
For comparison, here is the daily ration for paramilitary guard dogs in the Gulag concentration camps, as cited by historian Pater:“Beef or pork – 500 grams, cereals – 400 grams, flour – 100 grams, potatoes – 250 grams, cabbage – 250 grams, bread – 400 grams.”
And here's how Ukrainians recently released from captivity recall their meals:
“For breakfast, they would give us porridge at the bottom of the plate, barley or pearl barley, sometimes undercooked. Hypothetically, it could contain meat. They also gave us half a cup of tea. For lunch, they served only watery soup: some cereal or pasta, and if you were lucky, every few days you might get a hint of meat in your soup bowl. They also gave us cabbage soup, which is boiled cabbage floating in the water. For dinner, it was porridge again,” says Dmytro.
“They put one plate on the table for everyone with boiled bones, from which the meat was almost stripped off. The bread was often moldy, and it was obvious that mice had been chewing on it. Sometimes they would serve a plate of chopped raw cabbage for 10 people – a portion for one person. Tea was some kind of colored water, with no sugar. The pasta was like a lump of dough, sticky and not chewy. We were given no more than 5 minutes to eat because we had to give way to the guys from other barracks,” Denys says.
Who here wants to complain?
Ukrainian prisoners in the Gulag drank tea with sugar, could buy candy and cookies at the camp kiosk, and receive goodies in parcels from their families. Ukrainian prisoners in the Russian-occupied territories have none of this. They say they were just dreaming of vegetables, fruits, and sweets.
“There was a large garden there - apples, pears, apricots were lying underfoot, rotting. You had to go through this garden for interrogation or to work. When they noticed that someone was picking fruit, they put them in a disciplinary isolation cell and the conditions there were even worse. You'd walk in, see that apple hanging there, and you couldn't even stretch out your hand,” Dmytro shares his memories.
A disciplinary isolation cell is something like a punishment cell, which Ukrainian political prisoners recall. Oksana Meshko, for example, was given 300 grams of bread and a glass of boiling water twice a day in the punishment cell. Stepan Khmara satisfied his hunger with “a dark liquid called tea”, 500 grams of soggy bread, which caused unbearable heartburn, and soup “with a few pearl grains floating in it”.
“We took a couple of grains in our mouths, ate a little bit, chewed for a long time to make it feel like there was a lot of food,” fighter Dmytro echoes with Stepan Khmara.
Gulag prisoners could complain verbally and in writing to their superiors, and even organize acts of disobedience because of bad food. Now, Ukrainian prisoners cannot defend themselves in any way.
“You couldn't open your mouth to ask for water or a pill for stomach pain, because you would get a slap on the back or face or end up in a punishment cell, if not worse. We kept quiet so as not to provoke violence,” says Oleh.
And stomach pain and dental problems bothered everyone.
“Often there were sand and stones in the food, and we had to chew quickly, so the boys broke their teeth on them. Many of them had bleeding gums and loose teeth. And we often poisoned ourselves with these soups, which were made of unknown ingredients. Our stomachs ached both from hunger and immediately after eating. Our stomachs were always rumbling, swelling like drums. The guys often woke up in the middle of the night because of nausea and vomiting,” Denys recalls.
The prison administration deliberately provoked the prisoners' protests through food, for example, by not giving them spoons. You could drink soup from a bowl or jar, and you had to scoop out the porridge with your hands. Or they could make improvised spoons: they could be punished for such spoons if they were found during a search – “not allowed”.
“We used to bend plastic rectangles that looked like rulers to scoop up food. I don't know how they ended up in the cell,” Dmytro recalls.
“We made spoons out of plastic water bottles. They must have been left in the barracks after the prisoners. If there were no bottles, we ate without spoons,” Denys adds.
After the captivity, guys get used to “peaceful” food in different ways. According to Dmytro, he adapted quickly. Oleh has been suffering from gastritis for almost six months.
Currently, the Monitoring Mission has data on poor nutrition in 20 places of detention in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Some places are worse, some are better. It should be noted that the Russian side has denied the organization access to the occupied territories of Ukraine.
Author: Maia Orel