WASHINGTON (AP) — A volunteer Ukrainian medic detained in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol told U.S. lawmakers Thursday she has been comforting fellow detainees as many have died during her three-month captivity and weighing them as best she can and comfort as husband, wife and child prisoners succumbed to Russian torture and untreated wounds.
Ukrainian Yuliia Paievska, who was captured by pro-Russian forces in Mariupol in March and held at rotating locations in Russia-allied territory in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, spoke to lawmakers at the Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as Helsinki -Commission, a government agency created in part to promote international observance of human rights.
Their reports Thursday were the most detailed public about their treatment in captivity, in what Ukrainians and international rights groups say are widespread detentions of both Ukrainian non-combatants and combatants by Russian forces.
Known to Ukrainians by the nickname Taira, Paievska and her care for the wounded of Mariupol during the nearly seven-month Russian invasion of Ukraine attracted global attention after her bodycam footage was made available to The Associated Press.
“Do you know why we’re doing this to you?” a Russian man asked Paievska as he tortured her, she told the commission. She told the panel her answer to him: “Because you can.”
Harrowing descriptions of the prisoners’ suffering poured out. A 7-year-old boy died in her womb because she didn’t have the medical equipment she needed to treat him, she said.
Torture sessions usually began with their captors forcing the Ukrainian prisoners to strip off their clothes before the Russians began bleeding and tormenting the detainees, she said.
The result was some “prisoners in cells who screamed for weeks and then died from torture without medical attention,” she said. “Then, in this agony before death, they only feel abuse and extra beatings.”
She continued and told about the toll among the detained Ukrainians. “My friend whose eyes I closed before his body cooled down. another friend And another. Other.”
Paievska said she was taken into custody after being stopped at a routine document check. She was one of thousands of Ukrainians believed to have been captured by Russian forces. The mayor of Mariupol said 10,000 people disappeared from his city alone during the month-long Russian siege of that city. It fell to the Russians in April, with the city all but destroyed by Russian bombardment and countless deaths.
The Geneva Conventions provide medical professionals, both military and civilian, for protection “in all circumstances”. Senator Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat and co-chair of the Helsinki Commission, stressed that the conditions she described for civilian and military detainees violated international law.
Rep. Joe Wilson, RS.C., labeled Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal.
“It is critical that the world hears the stories of those who endured the worst in captivity,” Wilson said. “Evidence is essential to the prosecution of war crimes.”
Before her arrest, Paievska recorded more than 256 gigabytes of harrowing bodycam footage showing her team’s efforts to rescue the wounded in the cut-off city. She gave the footage on a tiny data card to journalists from the Associated Press, the last international team in Mariupol.
The journalists fled the city on March 15 with the card in a tampon and carried it through 15 Russian checkpoints. The next day Paievska was taken by pro-Russian troops. Lawmakers played AP video of their footage Thursday.
She emerged on June 17, thin and haggard, her athlete’s body more than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) lighter from lack of food and activity. She said the AP report, which showed she cared equally for Russian and Ukrainian soldiers as well as Mariupol civilians, was crucial to her release on a prisoner swap.
Paievska had previously refused to discuss the prison conditions in detail with journalists, only describing them in general terms as hellish. She swallowed intermittently on Thursday while testifying.
The Ukrainian government says it has documented nearly 34,000 Russian war crimes since the war began in February. The International Criminal Court and 14 Member States of the European Union have also launched investigations.
The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine says it has documented that prisoners of war in Russian custody have suffered torture and ill-treatment, as well as inadequate food, water and sanitation.
Russia has not responded to the allegations. Both the United Nations and the International Red Cross say they have been denied access to detainees.
Paievska, who said she had a headache while in custody from a concussion from a previous blast, told lawmakers she asked her captors to let her call her husband to tell him what happened to her.
“They said, ‘You’ve seen too many American movies. There won’t be a call,'” she said.
Her tormentors sometimes urged her to kill herself during her detention, she said.
“I said no. I’ll see what happens tomorrow,” she said.
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Lori Hinnant contributed to this report from Paris.
Follow AP’s coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war at: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine