If, in the first months after the start of a full -scale invasion, most were in detention center and colonies near the Ukrainian border, they are now being moved deep into the Russian Federation, and in the occupied territory they promise to open new colonies. At the same time, the conditions of detention are everywhere terrible, and the attitude does not meet the guarantees of the Geneva conventions. Focus based on the collected interviews tells about three prisons.
The ward in one of the medical institutions of the capital is suffocating and little illuminated. On the windows - adhesive tape and polyethylene, protection against small debris in case of explosion. "The resort is compared to what I had to go through," says one of the military. In the room three beds. Two - wounded on the front and one former prisoners of war. The latter is also injured. He received it a few hours before captured in August 2022 in Kherson region.
He said he thought the Russians would shoot him. "When I was decided to be transferred to a pre -trial detention center (initially kept in one of the premises in Simferopol in the occupied Crimea), I could already move independently," says Vladimir (names, surnames, focus units, does not indicate the request of the interlocutors). As in the pre -trial detention center, I thought, for exchange . . . they loaded into Kamaz and Urals.
They were put on the plane, and already started using a shocher there - if you are peeking, somehow you are not sitting. They were brought to Rostov, thrown into a car facility, for some time they were taken. The door opened, the dogs began to bark, they kneel, they were assembled, they ordered their heads to be raised, then the questionnaires were filled, beaten, fingerprints were taken, beaten, and shocked by shockers again . . . Especially for tattoos came . . . And me . . .
Shoker - in the back, in the shoulder, in the neck. Beaten, I got up, beat again. And so long until I could stand up. " Taganrog is one of the most commonly mentioned prisoners of war. Here in the pre -trial detention center # 2 the Russians keep both men and women. In April-May 2022, the defenders of Mariupol-Marines from the plant named after them were brought here. Illich. There were also 56 separate infantry brigade and 109 from a separate territorial defense brigade in Donetsk region.
"It was hard there. We treated us as with prison with Zeks," said one of the prisoners of war Anastasia. "It all started with acceptance. We were taken out of buses and shouted to lower our heads. We had not just to lower our head, but to bend So that she was at the knee level. ”Nastya said that women were just pushed, but men cruelly beat: uniform, and were published in prison, distributed on cameras. Cameras are small rooms where three of the bun, a table and benches are screwed to the floor.
Something looks like a carrier. "Everything that could Bed, and look somewhere - not on the door, not out the window, not on each other. It is forbidden to communicate with each other, as well as walking around the camera. By heart, it is necessary to study the song "Victory Day", the anthem of Russia and a poem about "The Brothers of the Russians that we need to forgive. " All the words on the wall hung, "Vladimir continues. There were two more servicemen in the chamber.
One of them in Taganrog since May. He told Vladimir how to behave. Appeal, - he says. - In the morning and at lunch, special forces came, brought us into the corridor, forced to accept the position "turtle", sit down, and at the same time use physical force. I was first hit on the leg and immediately broke my leg. I lie, they beat me, do not believe that he was injured. But even the doctor was found. I, however, told him that he had caught and fell - he did not want me to break something else.
" The routine in the Taganrog pre-trial detention center, as in any pre-trial detention center: ascent, breakfast, lunch, dinner and raw. "True, they were fed bad. You know how? . . They gave pasta. That is one pasta, which is not salty, not warm. And in general everything they fed, is tasteless. Tea is difficult to call tea. Such an impression that one is in one A large pan was put one bag and stirred. Only in the evening they gave fried carasik with spices, "Vladimir says.
In addition to physical torture, they pressed psychologically. One prisoner of war tells them that they were constantly turned on the radio. But instead of news, they listened to low -grade songs about the Donbas. Loud and all day. The other said that there was nothing worse than the cries of the torture people without a break for 15-20 minutes. Then the beaten, sometimes unconscious is thrown into the camera, help is provided by those nearby. Sometimes captured cameras were taken away.
Without explanations. Some thought that it was exchanged, but it turned out that they were simply transferred to another detention center or colony. Kamensk-Shakhtynsky is another city in the Rostov region of the Russian Federation, located on the right bank of the Siversky Donetsk River, close to the border with Ukraine. Here is the male correctional colony of the general regime №12. And it also holds captives of Ukrainian servicemen. And the order is also "as in the area".
As Russian media wrote in early March, it was from this colony that all prisoners have been exported from the beginning of a full -scale invasion. The Federal Service for the Execution of Sentences of the Russian Federation explained this fact of repair work. But then some Russian "telegrams"-channels reported that it is likely to be released "for the needs of the military. " There are cases where Kamensk-Shakhtynsky is brought from Taganrog.
Taras, one of the former prisoners of war, recalls how a guard came into the camera in Taganrog - to check if there is a bruise on the body. "Everyone thought - they will be taken to the exchange, saying who need bruises, and therefore - unnecessary evidence of cruel attitude . . . Then they led to dress - they gave other clothes. The road was not beaten. Then they dressed packages on their heads, went without handcuffs. "Exactly - to exchange. " But they were wrong. They were taken about three hours.
When they took off the bags from their head - they saw a new prison, "says the former prisoner of war. And it all started in a new way. Taras recalls "the acceptance" (as in Taganrog, they are mentioned as the most violent procedure): "The guards were lined up in a row, everyone who passed by them received a stick on the back. So new bruises appeared. " Then Taras and others were settled in a home, which was called quarantine.
On the second floor of the prison building there were sleeping places, and all day had to stay on the ground floor and stand. "They could forget about breakfast, bring lunch like dinner. I had to eat quickly, run to improvised tables and swallow hot," says the fighter. Before the pole - in the system. And this is a necessary procedure. "We stand, we wait for the first time to rise to the second floor.
On the contrary, special forces and representatives of the colony with sticks were lined Day, "says the released prisoner and shows the scar on his head - he stayed after such beating. He was not provided with medical care, the companion washed the wound with water. After the quarantine, they got to the "detachments". They were located in a three -storey building, similar to a barrack. "Windows are, water, toilet too.
The conditions are better than in the pre-trial detention center, but to sleep, for example, they had to be on two-tier beds with almost no mattresses. When we were driven there, the colony was prepared for receiving a large number of prisoners people, "says the Ukrainian fighter. Chess teams were created there, even said: who wins - will get a cake. They promised to allow football, movies to watch. But we never waited. But the librarian and the library saw.
Books - Russian classics were brought to the colony. One had to read, the other to listen. Standing. Then they gave the chairs - allowed to sit. But the "repertoire" did not change. But not everyone was placed in detachments. Some - in the penalty insulator. Why some are relatively better conditions, and others are harsh, no one can explain. A penalty sheet in Kamyansk-Shakhtynsky is two by two, two by six meters in size.
There, as in the Taganrog detention center, the prisoners were forbidden to sit, if someone violated the ban, it was brought to the corridor and beaten. And if they read "Russian classics" in the barracks, then in the penalty detention was forced to sing the anthem of Russia - in the morning and in the evening. About medical assistance in the correctional colony No. 12, servicemen say briefly: "It is better without it.
" "In early October, everyone started to get sick with dysentery, they did not know what to do with it. At first we were brought pills, then started calling in the infirmary. You go there, you will be waiting for a young guy with a stick, you take this pill, you get a few blows on the back, then-in our hands. So they tried to study us so that we did not drink water from under the tap. That's how we were treated, "-says the military.
He recalls that it was this colony who wanted to make a camp for prisoners of war. But chess and football could only play healthy, so all the wounded and sick were decided to take to another place. "We were transported in early October. Just put in the car and loaded into the cars. We had a guy wounded - he was constantly shaking his hands. , up to 12 hours in car facilities, "says the Ukrainian military.
He and others were brought not to exchange again, but to the pre -trial detention center - this time in Kursk. Maxim was captured in mid -April in Chernihiv. He was wounded, hid in some sheds, fainted, so he was found by Russian soldiers. Initially, they were kept in the basement, interrogated, then taken to a neighboring village, and then-KAMAZs across the Ukrainian-Russian border in Kursk.
"As we were just brought to that pre -trial detention center, we were informed that we are no one here, no one knows about us here, and our fates decide," Maxim continues. "It was a regular prison, we were treated as UV ' I have. In the first chamber where I was kept, and I was there for three weeks, there were 22 people. Then transferred to another, where, except for me, there was another eleven.
" Maxim says that in Kursk there were also civilians in the chambers with the military - those who were captured in the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy regions. The Russians called them fire adjustments. "I don't know why they thought - most guys did not even go through, they do not know which side of the weapons to keep. But the Russians still - to whom they wanted, they were attributed. There were no, civilians could not even find out what reason they were detained.
The principle is: you will ask - they will beat harder, "Maxim continues. For some Kursk, he became the last place of keeping, from which they were taken to exchange. "On the third day, as we arrived, we filled the documents that we were asking us to exchange," the serviceman recalls. "Then everyone was ordered to say on the camera that we were not applied to us physical strength, removed us to fix the absence of bruises.
They said to get out of the camera with things, dressed in other clothes - mostly civilian. They conducted another questioning - again we asked if we knew something about the murder of civilians in Mariupol or saw. " Then they were taken to the airport, pulled a bag on their head, but carefully forced to sit on the floor, and to clamp their heads with their feet - no one saw what could happen around. The aircraft made several stops. New captives came on board.
"The accomplices got drunk, if they did not like something, they were beaten by sticks on their heads," says the Ukrainian fighter. Bort sat in Crimea. Everyone was brought out and put in trucks and taken for exchange. "We saw those who were changed to us - fed, dressed, and we are thin, beaten and hungry," he continues.
The coordinator of a human rights organization Media Rights for Human Rights Maria Klimik, who interviewed military personnel who returned from captivity, says that the organization managed to establish twenty places of maintenance of prisoners of war in Russia. "Some of them are located not near the border with Ukraine, but in the depths of the country - in the Volgograd, Ryazan region. They also talk about Tula," she says.
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