DYMER, Ukraine, April 19 – Volodymyr Khropun and Yulia Ivannikova-Katsemon say they helped people flee frontline villages in northern Ukraine when they were detained by Russian soldiers for two days in March.
Both said they were then held with about 40 other detainees with their hands tied on the concrete floor of a nearby factory. Almost a week later, they were taken to Belarus in a military truck and on to detention centers in Russia, they said.
Khropun, an electrical engineer, and Ivannikova-Katsemon, an emergency services supervisor, were released along with 24 others in a prisoner exchange on April 9.
Standing outside the damp, windowless room they were said to be being held in in the formerly occupied village of Dymer, north of the capital, Khropun and Ivannikova-Katsemon have returned to describe their three weeks in Russian detention, which they said they spent were beaten. Ivannikova-Katsemon also said she was verbally abused.
Both said they were working as volunteers for the local Red Cross when they were captured, interrogated and accused of leaking information about Russian forces’ activities to the other side, which they deny.
The Ukrainian Red Cross confirmed that both were volunteers. Both were reported missing or illegally detained civilians on March 26 by the SOS initiative Euromaidan of the Ukrainian human rights group The Center for Civil Liberties.
Reuters has not been able to independently verify all the details of their stories. The Kremlin and the Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to requests for comment on their accounts.
Khropun and Ivannikova-Katsemon’s detailed accounts shed more light on the mistreatment Ukraine is said to have subjected to some of its citizens and soldiers in Russian captivity since the beginning of the war. Her trip also reveals one way Russia brought some of the hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners it is said to be holding onto Russian territory.
Since the war began on February 24, Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of violating the Geneva Conventions, which regulate the protection of civilians during war and the treatment of prisoners of war.
In March, Russia’s human rights ombudsman said it had heard of cases of “cruel and inhumane treatment” of Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine.
This month, Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman said returning prisoners of war described ill-treatment during their Russian captivity, including being placed in basements, being denied food and being stripped of their clothes. Continue reading
Authorities on both sides have repeatedly stated that they comply with international humanitarian law in relation to the treatment of detainees.
Speaking at the Dymer factory, Khropun described what happened when he was first arrested by Russian forces after driving evacuees through a checkpoint on March 18.
“They arrested me, closed my eyes — they pulled a hat over my eyes, tied it with duct tape — and then wrapped my hands in duct tape, like a terrorist. Then I was transferred here,” said Khropun, 44.
He and Ivannikova-Katsemon had both regularly crossed the front line to help locals escape fighting for villages north of Kyiv. Ivannikova-Katsemon, 37, was similarly arrested the next day, she said.
“By God, there was always a hope that I would return (home),” said Ivannikova-Katsemon, who has children, occasionally pausing to calm her voice or hold back tears. “The difficult part was not being able to tell family and friends that I was alive and in captivity.”
“Nightmare Comes Alive”
The two said they were being held in an unheated room at the small Dymer factory, huddled together on flimsy mattresses and scraps of cardboard. Around 40 inmates were crammed into the room and shared a plastic pot as a toilet.
“It was like a nightmare come to life,” Khropun told Reuters in the room where he was being held.
He pointed to the dirty mattress he shared with several others. The ground was littered with rubbish, empty boxes of Russian army rations, zip ties and loops of tape that they said tied people’s hands.
Ivannikova-Katsemon described how she could easily loosen the cuffs around her wrists by hiding it in her hair tie with a safety pin that she kept throughout her time in captivity.
The Russians brought food once or twice a day, mostly army crackers and occasionally a pot of cooked food. There were only two plastic spoons, so some people ate with their hands, others with scraps of paper, Khropun said.
One of the spoons was still in a pot half full of what appeared to be rotten cabbage stew.
A bullet hole was visible in the concrete ceiling of the room. One of the guards shot in the air to scare them, they said.
BELARUS AND RUSSIA
After nearly a week, Khropun and Ivannikova-Katsemon said they and about 14 other detainees were loaded onto a military truck. They were not told where they were going, but the stop-and-go journey through Belarus would eventually lead them to official detention centers in Russia.
In Belarus they said they were interrogated by the Russian military. They were each given a document containing their photo, date of birth, height, hair color and other identifying details that identified them as “a person who spoke out against the special military operation” – Russia’s term for its war in Ukraine.
They showed Reuters copies of documents entitled “Certificate of Identity” issued by the Russian armed forces.
“The first phase was being stripped naked, being photographed, noticing scars, I have a few. Then pouring water (on me) and punches,” Ivannikova-Katsemon said. The document she received lists her scars in a section called “Other Characteristics.”
In Russia, the two said they went through several different detention centers. Once Ivannikova-Katsemon said she was told she was being sent to work at a logging camp in Russia’s Far East.
“I don’t know the place, they just said: Siberia,” she recalls.
Khropun said he was repeatedly interrogated in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, sometimes being forced to kneel in cold rooms for long periods or having his knees or ribs beaten.
He said younger prisoners were singled out for extra hard beatings by the guards, who also shaved the prisoners’ heads and beards, sometimes leaving a tuft or half a mustache as a form of humiliation.
He said he was trying to keep up the morale of his fellow detainees, who he said were also Ukrainian civilians. “I’d say, ‘Guys – we’re all going to be 100% coming home. There’s just one little question: when?’”
RETURN HOME
On April 8, the two said they had been given back the clothes they wore when they were first arrested, still dirty from days spent on the factory floor.
In handcuffs, they were taken by plane to Crimea, from where they were taken by truck on April 9 to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
They said they had been selected for a prisoner exchange but did not know why they were chosen over others.
After about three weeks in captivity, they were back home.
“Of course there was a sense of joy, but it was kind of hard to understand,” Khropun said.
Khropun and Ivannikova-Katsemon said they were the only ones who were swapped out of the group of detainees sent to Russia by Dymer. They described their fears for the others who they believe are still being held in Russia.
Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that 26 prisoners were exchanged with Russia on April 9, but have not named all of them. The office of Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, who is in charge of negotiating the swap deals, did not respond to a request for comment on Khropun and Ivannikova-Katsemon’s release.
On April 11, Vereshchuk said a total of about 1,700 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were being held in Russia and by pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country. Continue reading
According to Vereshchuk, as of April 4, Ukraine was holding around 600 Russian military prisoners of war and no civilians.
Russia doesn’t release exact figures, but in late March its Human Rights Ombudsman said there were more than 500 Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia.
Ivannikova-Katsemon said she wears a medical brace and takes medication to ease the pain she is feeling as a result of her treatment in captivity.
“But those monsters who supposedly call themselves liberators didn’t break me,” she said, standing in front of the Dymer factory in the spring sunshine.
Additional reporting by Stefaniia Bern in Kyiv Editing by Rachel Armstrong, Frances Kerry and Jan Harvey