Inside Russia's prisons: Testimony reveals abuse of Ukrainian POWs
A few weeks after the invasion of Ukraine began, the leadership of the prison service in Russia issued recommendations regarding the treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war. The head of the Federal Penitentiary Service in St. Petersburg summed it up briefly: Be cruel, show no mercy.
Three former employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service have fled Russia. They have already testified before the International Criminal Court in The Hague and presented documents to support their claims. They have now shared with journalists from "The Wall Street Journal" what they were ordered to do.
The commanders informed them that the normal rules regarding the treatment of prisoners would not apply. There would be no restrictions on violence. Guards who dealt with prisoners of war were required to remove body cameras, which are mandatory in the Russian prison system.
Rotating guards, endless torture
The guards were to handle the prisoners for a month, after which another team would be sent in their place.
These meetings, as reported in the "WSJ," started nearly three years of relentless and brutal torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war. "The guards used electric shocks on the prisoners' genitals until the batteries were exhausted. They beat the prisoners to inflict maximum injuries, experimenting with what type of material would be the most painful. They withheld treatment, allowing gangrene to develop and forcing amputations," the article authors write.
According to human rights defenders and former prison guards cited by the "WSJ," the torture of the prisoners was used to break their will to continue fighting. Additionally, as the "WSJ" reports, Russian officials forced Ukrainians to confess to committing war crimes or to reveal secret valuable information to the Russians.
Source: wsj.com
