They were beaten with electricity, sledgehammers, put on a stretcher: victims of torture told how they survived the Russian occupation in Vovchansk, Kharkiv region

In Vovchansk, law enforcement officers are investigating crimes committed by Russians. During the occupation, they created a system of intimidation of the local population. Dissenters were sought out and tortured. Electric current was used most often: information was demanded and cooperation was forced. One of the residents of Vovchansk was beaten for a day for removing the Russian tricolor from the flagpole.

The Russians occupied Vovchansk on the first day of a full-scale invasion. The invaders turned the local police department into their barracks. Those Ukrainian policemen who did not betray their oath were able to get into their offices only after the liberation of the city from the occupiers, in September 2022.

“They destroyed the plinth and linoleum. They took everything with them, all the furniture. They even tore up the wallpaper in some offices,” recalls Ivan Zhilin, deputy chief of the investigation department of police department No.1.

The Russians sent detainees here. Here they conducted the first interrogations, forced them to cooperate. Ivan Zhilin’s colleague was kept in a cell for three days without food or water. They demanded to go over to their side. He did not agree.

“They were promised that if they go to work in the local people’s police, the salary will be about 80 thousand rubles. And that this money will be enough for them to support themselves and their families, and that Russia will be here forever. That they will work here for a long time, career growth,” says Ivan Zhilin, Deputy Chief of Investigation of Police Department No.1.

But some local police were tempted by the offer and even recorded the interrogations, which were accompanied by torture. This was told by Serhiy, who was arrested because of his son, a veteran of the Anti-terrorist operation in eastern Ukraine. He remembers how an FSB officer nicknamed Mars beat him and tortured him with a stun gun.

“We were present there, Vitaly Hristoyev, Eduard Fesyk. This is our militia, which worked together with them. They were present, they took notes. When this “Mars” left for a minute, Hristoyev came to me and gave me a cigarette.

The Russians turned the center of Vovchansk, where administrative buildings and an aggregate plant are located, into a closed zone.

“Every day they brought someone there, and every day someone left there. They had a passageway at the checkpoint. Someone enters, someone leaves. Someone was delivered, someone was tortured for three days, the person didn’t give information, they just threw it away,” says Ivan Zhilin, deputy chief of the investigation department of police department No.1.

Oleksandr was detained in the first days of the invasion. Someone saw him remove the Russian tricolor from the flagpole on the square, and the man was handed over.

He was tortured for a day. They shot a weapon next to the head, put it “on a stretcher”. Later, the beaten man was dumped in a field 8 kilometers from Vovchansk.

“Stretching is when your legs are split into twine and your arms are twisted. It is impossible to stand like that, a few seconds and you fall. You are beaten again, lifted up, put on a stretcher. And so 10 minutes on a stretcher, 10 on the floor, somewhere yes,” says Oleksandr, a victim of torture.

Law enforcement officers of the Kharkiv Region discovered 27 torture chambers, 2 of which were in Vovchansk. The most common means of torture was electric current.

“They threw two wires at the person, after which either a dynamo machine or an ordinary battery beat. And they simply tortured the person until he provided the necessary information,” says Ivan Zhilin, deputy chief of the investigation department of police department No.1.

“Persons were distributed according to the signs of belonging to the armed forces of Ukraine, other military formations, participants of the Anti-terrorist operation in the east of Ukraine, persons who are patriotic and actively participate in the spread of Ukrainian culture and history,” said the head of the Investigative Department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kharkiv region Dmytro Ovcharov.

Law enforcement officers managed to identify two hundred victims so far. Many of the victims of torture are not yet ready to tell their story. The investigation into these crimes is ongoing.