Several former Ukrainian prisoners in Russian hands on Wednesday, a few days after being released in exchange with Russia, reported “inhuman” and “horrible” prison conditions.
• Also read: Moscow is discussing its “dirty bomb” allegations with Beijing
• Also read: Biden warns that a Russian nuclear attack would be an “enormously serious mistake”.
• Also read: Mercedes-Benz sells assets to local investor in Russia
Viktoria Obidina, Tetiana Vassyltchenko, Inga Tchikinda and Lioudmyla Gousseïnova spent those hours, those days, those weeks or even those months as prisoners of the Russian army without knowing exactly where they were.
According to Ms. Obidina, a 26-year-old nurse who spent five months in captivity, the prison conditions were “horrific,” with “disgusting” food.
The young woman spent weeks with her four-year-old daughter in the underground tunnels of the huge Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol (south), which has become a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance.
Ms Obidina says she managed to entrust her daughter to an evacuee in May before the Russians took her into custody.
According to Ms. Obidina’s testimony of her captivity, the prisoners she was among were “very rarely” allowed to go for walks. “We were crammed into cells like sardines,” she said at a press conference in Kyiv.
humiliation
Tetiana Vassyltchenko, a civilian who helped the Ukrainian army in the medical service, spoke of the “mental pressure” and the “inhuman” conditions in which she lived for weeks: “They treated us like criminals, humiliated us,” she recalls, also regretting it the almost complete absence of medical assistance.
The four women also mention the lack of access to the Ukrainian media, while their Russian prison guards say they kept telling them “Ukraine doesn’t want you”.
However, these ex-prisoners, who were released in mid-October among 108 exchanged women, find it difficult to put into words everything they have experienced. The memories are still too fresh, too vivid.
“Not enough time has passed since the liberation,” explains Lioudmyla Gousseïnova, before Inga Tchikinda, who was born in Lithuania but has lived in Ukraine for 25 years, adds: “I have nothing good to say”. “I lost eight kilos in prison,” she says, and also denounces the malnutrition of Ukrainian prisoners.
However, they all remember very well their release between “tears of joy” and “absolute joy” knowing they were in a Kyiv-controlled area.
After eight months of war, several of them in prison, their wishes are different, between those who want to help the soldiers at the front again and those who, like Inga Tchikinda, are too scarred to take the risk of being arrested again.
“I’ll never survive something like that a second time,” she says.