As after World War II – witness statements: torture during Russian “filtration”

There are three stages in the “filtration” currently being practiced, Stanislav Miroshnychenko of the Ukrainian NGO “Media Initiative for Human Rights” (MIPL) said Wednesday. After a preliminary “filtration” at checkpoints or in apartments, some would come to “filtration camps” for a few weeks in a second phase.

Strips would be searched, they would be photographed, fingerprints would be taken and personal information would be collected. In these places, prisoners are subjected to psychological and physical pressure and are also tortured during interrogations. Individual cases of murders are also known.

Prison conditions ‘extremely bad’
All those not released after the second phase would eventually be transferred to prisons and penal colonies in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Prison conditions here are extremely bad, there is a lack of medical care and there are more cases of murders, Miroshnychenko said. He could not provide specific information on how many Ukrainians would have been subjected to this “filtration” in recent months.

“What has happened cannot be expressed in words,” said 25-year-old ex-footballer Ihor Talalaj, who volunteered in March to help evacuate civilians from Kharkov and then Mariupol to safer regions of Ukraine. After the arrival with checkpoints was already difficult, on March 19, on the return journey from Mariupol, a soldier from the Russian-controlled “Donetsk People’s Republic” did not fit his face or his clothes. He was then placed in a suburban area west of Mariupol with thirty other people in a three-by-three-meter basement.

Using Electric Shock as a “Lie Detector”
He was beaten during interrogations and then transferred to a prison in Olenivka outside Donetsk, where torture became even more brutal. In particular, Talalaj spoke about the use of electric shocks, which he described as “the DNR lie detector”. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, said the volunteer from Dnipro, whose ordeal ended with his release after 88 days.

Relatively happy, however, was music teacher and librarian Yuriy Berezovsky from Starobilsk in the Luhansk region, who waited a few weeks in terror after his hometown was occupied for his own “filtration.” After an arrest outside his home, numerous interrogations eventually took place, during which he was allegedly threatened with the “bottle”. This refers to a torture method known in Russia. However, since nothing incriminating was found in his cell phone and it was also known in Starobilsk that he had no contacts with the Ukrainian army, he was eventually released.