"Two ribs cracked under my heart at once from the beatings"

“Our dear soldier! I would like to wish you luck and victory. I hope that you will return to those who love and wait for you. You are a real hero of our country. You fight for us, for our Motherland. I want to thank you for your important service! You destroy cruelty and injustice,” writes Alina Orlova from the grade 6-B to the Russian military.

Her letter, on which a St. George's ribbon and five carnations are drawn, lies among the garbage in the waiting room of the Kozacha Lopan railway station in Kharkiv Oblast. For more than half a year, the Russians tortured and interrogated people here. They were taken from their cars right on the road or simply kidnapped in the middle of the street. The Russians came to their homes in the morning. Vitalii, a local resident, seems to have experienced the worst that could happen: he was beaten and tortured, and electric wires were connected to his genitals. He thought more than once that it would be better to die and not suffer anymore, not to endure the abuse of the Russians.

Hereinafter comes Vitalii's direct speech.

“Out of all of them, I was the only one who could understand what was really happening and what to do next”

On February 24, at about 12 o'clock, my daughter called me screaming. She and her mother, my ex-wife, lived separately, and a shell flew into their greenhouse behind the house.

They knew: out of all of them, only I could understand what was really happening and what to do next – after all, I had served three years in the ATO zone.

I came and stayed to live with them. Yes, I understood: if they catch me, it is not known what they will do with me. But my wife and I divorced when my daughter was five, and I couldn't leave her for the second time when she asked for help.

Until March 22, we all lived together, until the military came for me at 10 in the morning in two jeeps. There were four of them. They didn't even hide their faces – they just ran into the house with machine guns. I was preparing a salad at that time.

“Are you Vitalik? — Yes, I am. — Lie down.”

My ex-wife put a jacket on me and helped me with the sleeves. I got up. They told me not to raise my head. They put me in the car, hit me so that I would bend as low as possible, and put the barrel of the machine gun to my rib. One of the soldiers also said: “I hope there would be a jump and my finger would slip. So that we don't even take you there.”

Vitalii shows how his hands were tied. The man asked not to show his face - the territory of Russia is very close, and many are afraid of the return of the occupiers.

“Two ribs immediately cracked under my heart”

They brought me to the railway station. They pulled me out of the car and put me against the wall. A military man was standing nearby with a police baton. I saw how his hands were shaking, how he was boiling, full of adrenaline. When he hit my neck, I fell. Then people started running from everywhere, I immediately instinctively covered my head with my hands. They beat me and shouted: “Hello from Donbas!"

Two ribs immediately cracked under my heart from the beatings. As well as a few more on the back and on the right.

They raised me, gave me a cigarette, and dragged me to the station. They dragged me up the stairs to the second floor. I could no longer walk myself, so they started taking me to different rooms by the arm. And wherever we went, all rooms were occupied, and people were being interrogated.

Then one man was taken out of the room, making room for me. I remember that I took three or four steps from the entrance and they started beating me again. I fell. They kicked me. I screamed that I had an inguinal hernia and that if they continued I would die on the spot.

“Where is the inguinal hernia? Show us,” they told me.

They pulled off my pants and my underpants, I turned over to show them, and something like a clothespin was attached to my genitals, and a piece of thick, heavy wire was placed on my thigh.

“Now you will answer my questions. And you will answer correctly,” said one of the soldiers.

Then I realized what would happen next.

When the current was turned on, I felt as if hot metal, cold nitrogen, or both were being poured through my genitals. This sound “dik-dik-dik-dik”. I kept hearing it in my head.

Meanwhile, they asked questions about who I was before serving in the ATO, how I got into the ranks of the ATO fighters, and the dates of birth of both my children. It was a kind of test to see if I was lying.

In fact, they had all the information about me and just laughed at what I answered. The only thing that saved me was that they didn't find my military documents. That's why I said that I was the foreman of the company – I cooked, dressed soldiers, and had nothing to do with weapons.

They electrocuted me until one of their militaries entered.

“Oh, look, he has everything on fire, and the smoke comes out.”

They laughed and started pouring water on me. Not to extinguish, but to allow the current to flow better.

“I call on the Ukrainian army to lay down its arms, not to fire against Russia...”

I started hitting my head on the floor. I wanted to smash my head and die. Electrocution was beyond the limit, I could not bear it.

Then the military put some kind of rag under my head and said: if I continue, they will electrocute me until my heart stops.

I was screaming, suffocating, I was short of air.

It seems to have stopped after about an hour and I was taken down to the basement which was already full of locals. I heard that there were old people and young people, but I couldn't see who exactly because my eyes were taped.

All the time I had a dizzy feeling there as if I go nuts. It happened that the wardens gave a cigarette: everyone took two puffs and passed it on. Food was brought once a day — a disposable glass of soup. We were taken to the toilet whenever we wanted. But two weeks after being electrocuted, I peed sitting. I was afraid not only to look at the genitals but even to touch them with my hands. There was a large wound.

For approximately 3-4 days, the place where we were kept was shelled. The Russian military ran into the basement all together frightened. And I prayed to God that it would hit right here. I did not have the strength to endure, and I did not know what would happen next. I wanted to kill them all.

On the fifth day, the Russian press arrived. They led me out of the basement into a small room. Journalists were standing in front, and military men in black with machine guns were behind them. They said that if I answer correctly, I will not die and will go to my family and children.

They read questions to me and told me how I should answer: where I served, in which battalion, that I did not shoot at the Russians, and that I call on the Ukrainian army to lay down its arms. There was something else about brother nations...

They also asked me to say all this very convincingly, with an appeal, like an artist!

My words were recorded on video, uploaded to YouTube, and then I was sent back to the basement.

“They called us convicts”

Suddenly, the military ran into the basement.

“This one – out!”

To be honest, I had little hope that I would now be released to my family, as promised.

No - they put him against the wall, cut the old tape from the hands, turned them, and retaped them at a 90-degree angle. Even though I had broken ribs.

They took me to Border checkpoint with RussiaHoptivka, where they locked me in the basement again. I could no longer stand, so I asked to sit on the floor and bowed my head.

Then a doctor came there, making rounds among the “convicts” (that's what the Russians called us). He ordered them to untie my hands urgently, otherwise, I could die.

The doctor shoved a pill into my mouth and it fell to the floor. I tried to catch it, and they pushed her back to my mouth and gave me some more drugs.

In half an hour I was taken out again. I saw there was a camera, a light. Some man, who did not even hide his face, ordered me to tell again the same thing that I had already said in Kozacha Lopan.

It was very important for me to remember every dot, comma, and word. If I had mixed things up, I would have been in trouble.

After that, the interrogations with the same questions started again and they hit on the broken ribs again. It seemed to me that they knew everything about electrocution, about previous interrogations at the station, and they decided to repeat it in order to compare again whether I was lying at times.

“Tell me what you need me to say, just don't electrocute me!”

They took me by the arms again. I thought: what else could be next? I heard the door open, the tape was cut from my eyes again — and I saw about 30 people in two rows with their hands behind their backs in front of me. Everyone is looking at me, but I can't understand where I am and who they are. There were rags, sacks, and pallets behind them — this meant that they live here.

One elderly man said: “Give him water quickly, can't you see, he can't come to his senses?” I drank.

As soon as the guard closed the door, everyone sat down. Otherwise, they had to stand with their hands behind their backs and their heads down.

Never in my life will I forget that sound when people were tortured with a An electric torture device used by the Russians. It looks like a field telephonetapik. When they said: “Tell me.” “What should I tell you?” And then there was this sound. People shouted: “Say what you need me to say, just don't electrocute me!”

I heard one man gurgling from the beatings.

“I'm not a colonel. I have no relation to the army at all, I am a civilian,” said a man who was interrogated.

And really, it was just a tall and sedate man.

I collected cigarette butts and peeled potatoes

Later, I was put to work. I had to sweep the area.

One day, a column of hardware marked with the letter Z was passing through Hoptivka. I raised my head to see what was there. The guard immediately noticed this and made me collect the cigarette butts. I had to crawl on my knees, I couldn't do it any other way with my ribs broken. However, after that no one raised their head anymore — everyone had learned well.

Later, I started working in the kitchen: peeling potatoes, onions, and carrots, and washing pots and plates. We were not allowed to cook, of course. The work shift was from 7 am to 10 pm, it was necessary to prepare food for 150 and 300 soldiers during their rotation.

We were also fed there three times a day, but so that no one could see. Because some came into the kitchen and said: “Oh, stinky ukrops (ethnic slur which refers to Ukrainians – ed.), I have no appetite.”

Sometimes I sat in the kitchen, looking at the Belgorod highway, with many broken vehicles on it. Commander's armored cars, as if hit with a hammer, smashed. The soul was so happy, but it was impossible to smile.

It happened that shells hit near us. At first, they hid, and then they remembered that somewhere there were "convicts", that is, us, running.

They said: “Well, some survived, some did not survive.” And they laughed.

“I was constantly waiting for a shot in the back”

That's how the month passed.

One day I came to the basement after work, and they tell me that the military came in, and called my and another man’s names.

It meant that we were going to be let go. But I didn't believe it — I thought it was just a bad joke.

I did not sleep until morning. I thought that either they would really let me go, or they would take me somewhere further. Because there were cases when they took ATO soldiers with them to Luhansk. As they said, to restore the "DPR" and "LPR". This is what I feared the most.

The next day at 9 am, their chief with the call sign “Minister” arrived. He held my passport in his hands and called my name again.

“Do you want to go home at all or not?”

And I didn’t know whether to jump for joy or to be afraid. I said, of course, I wanted to go home, to my children.

“I couldn't find you yesterday. You have 15 minutes to collect your things.”

We were released together with my friend Oleh. They gave instructions: “You now live in Russia, so do not transmit any information by phone, and do not adjust fire. You’ll live peacefully, and everything will be fine.”

As it turned out, they decided to let us go because the Russian leadership was coming, and the military got in trouble because of the conditions in which we were kept. There were half a hundred people in a small room, where we were suffocating, the walls were leaking, so it was easy to get sick. They were told to either change people or keep at most 20 and let the rest go.

We were given documents and told to go to Kozacha Lopan and not to leave the highway, because there were mines everywhere.

We walked three kilometers, and I was constantly waiting for a shot in the back. I walked a few steps and looked around. I did not believe that they could let us go so easily.

We reached the turn and my hands began to shake — am I going home? We were stopped again at the roadblock. Men in black “police” uniforms were standing there, and Russian hardware was hidden in the ravine.

They checked us and asked where we are from. One also clarified whether I was involved in the war, the ATO. “No,” I answered in horror.

We were released, and we made our way home on the local trails. I sat on the threshold and started to cry. I did not think that after all the torture I would get to my parents' house. I kept looking around and looking at the house to make sure it was true.

“The car drove by, and you're running to the window and checking if it's not for you”

On the second or third day I headed to the station. I approached the Russian military with a passport: I say that I am an ATO member, do I need to register? Because it happened here that those who were hiding were treated even more harshly. He said that he was “at zero” - that's what the Russians called Hoptivka.

They took me to the station and began to rewrite my personal information again.

They promised that they would not touch me again if I lived outside the place of registration.

After that, I started working a lot in the garden. Ш planted and planted everything so as not to take anything from the hands of the Russians. I even grew my own tobacco.

However, the paranoia did not go away after Hoptivka. You dig once and look at the yard. The car drove by, and you are running to the window and checking if it is not for you.

After three months, there was a knock on my door — and I was taken for a check-up again. It seemed that this “groundhog day” would never end. They tried to force me to rat out those who use phones.

I had to make up that all the locals were already afraid of me as an ATO fighter, and now they started to fear me even more — because I was taken away and tortured. I told them that I am not healthy to go anywhere, that I wetted my bed at night, and that my stool contains blood.

They gave me my passport, and phone and promised again that they would not touch me again. They ordered me to be treated at home.

In short, they needed new victims. What could they take from those from whom everything has already been squeezed?

They haven’t come to me anymore.

Like another apocalypse

At approximately 1 am on the eve of the release, there was a lot of noise. I ran to the window in my underwear and saw that some military man was knocking at my gate. I thought they would take me to the basement again. I didn't know that they were running away. I changed, covered myself with a blanket, and drank some valerian — and that's how I managed to doze off.

In the morning there was silence, and no one was shooting. It was like another apocalypse. I didn't know what to do.

I arrived in the center, and there the locals were taking down the occupying posters, and putting their flags on the road. Our cars with military personnel drove by, and people were shouting. I had to run 100 meters to the village council but my legs turned to jelly and sprawled. I did not believe that such a thing could happen, that we would be liberated.

Later I went through our filtering. I gave testimony, which was recorded in the statement and protocol. According to our legislation, this is an article on the illegal deprivation of liberty.

They promise compensation, but I am most concerned about my health and the psychologist. Although during my service I had a company under my command, so I was both a father and a psychologist for the soldiers.

I went to the places where I was tortured. The first time it was very scary, I couldn't say a word. It's easier to remember now. I am telling my story and I want people even in distant countries where they have never heard of Ukraine to know what the Russians are doing to us.