Ukrainian female POWs tortured and paraded naked through the snow by Russian troops

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1. > “They led us to the showers with bags over our heads, where we were forced to undress. We had to walk naked in front of the men and everyone else, bent over, through freezing cold water,” said Larysa Kycherenko, 53, who served in Ukraine’s National Guard.

   > “Afterwards, we were forced to sing the Russian anthem while naked. We returned to the cells in tears, utterly distraught, crying and in a state of hysteria… It was inhumane. To them, we were nothing.”

   Looks eerily similar to Assad torture practices.

   > While they make up a small minority of the total number of POWs captured by Russia, women like Ms Kycherenko say the threats they faced were different to those of the men imprisoned alongside them.

   > “If it’s hard for men, it’s even harder for women – many of the women weren’t fighters,” she said.

   > Ms Kycherenko, her husband and her 34-year-old son were captured in occupied Mariupol in 2022 after they were betrayed by their neighbours.

   Families thrown to the wolves, by collaborators…

   > During her ordeal, Ms Kycherenko was forced to stand for over 12 hours a day, beaten, and psychologically tortured – in an apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions.

   > She described being “slammed” against the wall by a guard and beaten with a metal pole, and then being denied medical treatment for the open wound it left on her leg.

   BRICS will bring back humane treatment and international law, surely.

   > The UN’s Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has accused Russia of using a form of torture called the “tiny train”, in which POWs are forced to line up, stooped over, and walk between guards who beat them.

   > Ms Zubko confirmed that she had been subjected to the practice.

   > “Each guard tried to hit us as we walked. We had our heads down and they would force us down even lower. We were beaten badly and the guards seemed to enjoy it. There was no reason – they would just beat us for fun.”

   Nah, the UN is not reliable enough clearly. /s

   > Every day the women were forced into stress positions – another form of torture where prisoners are forced to hold agonising postures – for hours at a time, and made to do near-impossible exercise routines supervised by guards who would beat them if they failed to keep up.

   > “We would fall to the ground and they would punish us […] We were made to march on the spot in the freezing cold for hours at a time, singing the Russian national anthem,” she said. “Every day your only task is to survive.”

   Literally how the work camps were ran 8 decades ago.

   > Ms Zubko and several women The Telegraph spoke to reported being given electric shocks by cattle prods and power cables during the repeated interrogations.

   > Loudspeakers blasted the Russian national anthem into her cramped cell around the clock to deprive her of sleep in between interrogation sessions lasting several hours.

   > “Sleep was impossible for days at a time,” she said. “The guards even told us, “We’re feeding you just enough so you don’t die.” It was like they were keeping us alive, and nothing more. They were trying to starve us slowly.”

   > Guards routinely held knives to her neck and took her outside to show her where they would “bury her body” after killing her.

   “Liberators” innit.

   > Ms Ostapenko was in Olenivka prison on July 29, when an explosion in one of the barracks killed 50 Ukrainian POWs and injured 100 more – an incident that became known as the Olenivka Prison Massacre.

   > Moscow blamed the massacre on a HIMARS missile launched by Ukraine, but both the United Nations and Ukraine have disputed their claims.

   > “Well before the explosion, the guards suddenly disappeared,” said Ms Ostapenko. “They were usually around, but this time, they weren’t. We all noticed and found it suspicious.”

   Oh I remember that one, tankies parroting the Kremlin’s bollocks, when you could even see on the pictures how the explosion and fire came from inside.

   > Lyudmila Huseynova, 61, was detained by Russia in 2019, surviving captivity for three years and 13 days – all for sharing a photograph she took of a resistance flag with people she thought were friends.

   > During her time in captivity, Ms Huseynova was sexually assaulted by a gang of guards and witnessed the rapes of numerous women by soldiers.

   > “The bag on my head started to fall off, so they grabbed it and tightened it so much around my neck that I was being strangled. This was the first feeling of pain and horror,” she said as she recounted her capture.

   > “They turned me to face the wall and undressed me. Someone touched me, and then there were a lot of hands. And they commented, they laughed, they pinched, they felt everywhere with their hands.”

   > Ms Huseynova said that for the first 50 days she was kept in a tiny cell she likened to a “torture chamber” alongside 20 other women, with no sanitation and little food. Like others she was forced to stand for over 12 hours a day.

   > “One time I just couldn’t stand it, my back hurt so much… I thought, well, what will happen if I climb up into bed for 10 to 15 minutes,” she said.

   > Russian guards, watching via a camera in the corner of the cell, threw open the door.

   > “They started yelling, shouting, ‘you have to stand’. But I couldn’t quickly because I was undressed. He grabbed me by the leg and threw me from the top bunk bed onto the concrete floor. I fell, but they continued to kick me. Later I took off my clothes and saw that my body was black.”

   Nothing says “resistance to imperialism” like beating and raping a mum like cattle.

   > Younger girls would be taken to a dormitory where Russian soldiers stayed.

   > “When they returned, they cried,” said Ms Huseynova. Other women were often raped by soldiers who promised they would get food or see their children again, she said.

   > “I heard terrible screams. I could hear people beating and people were screaming. It was such a horror. In my life, even when I was already beaten, it was not as horrible as listening to this.”

   But remember, Ukraine “asked for it” by existing 😑

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