When Ukrainian doctor Tetyana Vasylchenko was released after being detained by Russia, the bus ride back to freedom was very emotional.
“I had never cried before, not even when I lost some comrades. But when I got a Ukrainian flag on the bus, I started to cry”said.
Vasylchenko and 107 other women were released from Russian detention last week as part of a long-negotiated prisoner swap with Moscow.
Four of the women spoke in Kiev on Wednesday to share what they had experienced: overcrowded prison cells, hunger, physical abuse and humiliation.
“Conditions were terrible,” said Viktoria Obidina, a military nurse imprisoned at the Azovstal steel plant, which has become a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance.
Inmates were “packed like sardines” in the prison, the food was abhorrent and they were rarely allowed outside for a walk.Viktoria testified.
Speaking to AFP earlier this week, Obidina said she had been held in the famous prison in the Russian-occupied city of Olenivka.
Her captors told her that her daughter, who left the steel mill with Ukrainian citizens, had been sent to an orphanage.
“These People Are Monsters”
According to Vasylchenko, the female prisoners were subjected to “intense psychological pressure” and were constantly humiliated.
“They said, ‘You don’t want Ukraine. No one will ask for your exchange, because everyone has forgotten about you. Who needs your wives?'”remembers Vasylchenko.
All detainees were held “in an information vacuum”. “We were told that everything was going wrong in our country,” he added.
Kiev authorities estimate that thousands of Ukrainians are still being held by Russia as prisoners of war.
Guseynova, a volunteer from the eastern region of Donetsk, spent three years in captivity. She was detained in 2019 by pro-Russian separatists, accused of making pro-Kiev statements to orphans she cared for.
Guseynova was too traumatized to talk about what she’d been through. “It’s been a very short time since I was released, it’s difficult,” he said.
The trauma was also painful recently for Inga Chikinda, an army marine. “I’m not ready to talk about the physical abuse yet,” said Chikinda, who lost eight pounds and started stuttering after being held. “These people are monsters,” he concluded.
Source: DN
