More testimony is emerging that Ukrainian prisoners face murder, kidnapping and torture by Kremlin-backed forces. New revelations come from relatives of the victims and a volunteer who works to get the prisoners of war released.
But Eduard Basurin, a spokesman for Kremlin-backed militants in Donetsk, said by phone that Ukrainian prisoners are treated well and that he knows nothing about any maltreatment, let alone war crimes..
However, volunteer Viktor Maistrenko said that separatist fighter Artyom Bokachyov told him by phone on Jan. 31 that most Ukrainian POWs captured during the separatist siege of Debaltseve were executed, according to a recording of the conversation provided to the Kyiv Post.
The authenticity and identity of the voices on the recording were not independently verified by the Kyiv Post.
“We have no prisoners,” Bokachyov, who was based in Vuhlehirsk, 13 kilometers west of Debaltseve, allegedly said on the recording. He said that “everyone was shot by order of” Donetsk-based separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko “after the Ukrainian army shelled an orphanage and a bus with children. Ten orphans were killed.”
Bokachyov said that only two Ukrainian POWs remained in Vuhlehirsk near Debaltseve in Donetsk Oblast. But he said they would be killed soon.
According to the recording, Bokachyov told Maistrenko: “They will be torn apart for what the Ukrainian army is doing.”
The revelations build on admissions by separatists and eyewitness testimony that war crimes have been committed.
Earlier this month, Russian citizen Arseniy Pavlov, a combatant known as Motorola, told the Kyiv Post by phone that he had killed 15 prisoners. Witnesses said one of them was Ukrainian soldier Ihor Branovytsky.
The Kyiv Post also interviewed relatives of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians captured by Kremlin-backed separatists.
Another Ukrainian allegedly murdered by separatists was police sergeant Oleg Naumenko, wounded on Feb. 15 when a Ukrainian checkpoint was shelled by Kremlin-backed forces. He was transferred to a hospital near Debaltseve and then, on Feb. 16, a convoy transporting Naumenko to Artemivsk was shelled by Russian-backed forces. Contact with him was lost. Subsequently Naumenko’s body was transferred by separatists to Dnipropetrovsk’s forensic examinations bureau. According to the bureau, he died of gunshot wounds. It is not clear, however, whether he was killed in battle or in captivity. But Naumenko’s face was burned, bruised and deformed, Svitlana Pavlovska, his mother-in-law, told the Kyiv Post.
Olga Kyiashko, a volunteer helping Naumenko’s relatives find him, said by phone that she believed the bruises proved that he had been beaten. Kyiashko, Pavlovska and Maistrenko believe that Naumenko was likely killed when he was a prisoner of war.
Another alleged case of torture and murder of a Ukrainian prisoner was published by Dozhd, a Russian opposition television channel. This month Dozhd released a video showing several Ukrainian POWs later identified as 30th brigade soldiers – Oleksandr Berdes from Cherkasy Oblast, Vasyl Demchuk from Volyn Oblast and Pavlo Platsynsky from Zhytomyr Oblast. All of them had been killed.
In the video, one of the separatists says “don’t shoot him,” but then gunshots are heard.
Anna Zaplishna, Berdes’ wife, told Hromadske television in April that her husband had been captured by Kremlin-backed forces after Feb. 8. She said a Donetsk-based volunteer had claimed that the three soldiers were killed by shelling on the outskirts of Donetsk. But she suspects they had been beaten to death. She said Berdes was beaten severely and his body was bruised.
“Platsynsky was shot in the eye, and Vasyl Demchuk didn’t have an ear, “ Zaplishna said. “They are sadists.”
Soldiers of Ukraine’s 15th brigade held as prisoners in Donetsk Oblast’s Makiyivka have also been reportedly mistreated. Several of them have claimed by phone that they had been severely beaten, Maistrenko said.
There are also reports that civilian hostages are mistreated.
In early February Kremlin-backed militants detained Oksana Svyryd, the wife of Ukrainian soldier Anatoly Svyryd, and three other people, Anatoly Svyryd said by phone. Oksana Svyryd decided to go to Horlivka in separatist-held areas in a bid to get her husband released. Instead, they were detained by separatists after symbols of the EuroMaidan Revolution were found in their car.
“Oksana was beaten and tortured with electricity,” Anatoly Svyryd said.
Kremlin-backed militants shot another detainee, Vlad Pashchenko, in the leg, he said. The third one, Viktor Tutov, was beaten severely and will undergo surgery in Dnipropetrovsk, Svyryd added.
Oksana Svyryd told Maistrenko that some detainees’ ribs had been broken.
She was released after 11 days, while Pashchenko and Tutov were released after a month. But the fourth detainee – Sergei Rudnev, a pro-Ukrainian Russian citizen who has lived in Ukraine for many years – was kidnapped.
Rudnev was transported into Russia by separatists and charged with illegally crossing the border and illegal arms possession, Maistrenko said. He was being held at the Tikhoretsk detention center in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai, Maistrenko added. The Tikhoretsk police department and detention center refused to comment.
One of the most gruesome episodes of alleged war crimes happened during the separatist rule of Sloviansk in Donetsk Oblast between April-July 2014. In July documents confirming extrajudicial executions by Russian-backed militants in Sloviansk were found along with mass graves of at least 14 people, including four Protestant civilians.
Igor Druz, an aide to Russian citizen Igor Strelkov who ruled Sloviansk, admitted that the militants had carried out some extra-judicial executions.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].
