{"id":137938,"date":"2025-10-22T08:52:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T08:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/137938\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T08:52:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T08:52:13","slug":"former-pows-saw-only-lust-for-war-conquest-in-russian-jails-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/137938\/","title":{"rendered":"Former POWs saw only lust for war, conquest in Russian jails \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president Donald Trump<\/a> claims the Kremlin is now ready to end its invasion of Ukraine<\/a>, but Ukrainians who have seen the Russian<\/a> regime from inside say they witnessed only a lust for more war and conquest during years of imprisonment and torture.<\/p>\n

Soldiers Serhiy Taraniuk and Ruslan Zarianych were captured at the same time while defending the southeastern Ukrainian port of Mariupol, and released on the same day in a prisoner exchange in 2024 after spending 2\u00bd years in often brutal captivity.<\/p>\n

In jails in occupied parts of Ukraine and in Russia itself, they were subjected to beatings, electric shocks, attacks by guard dogs and other physical and psychological abuse that rights groups say is standard treatment for Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs).<\/p>\n

They also describe being exposed to an extreme version of the world view and propaganda pumped out across Russia by officials and media loyal to veteran autocrat Vladimir Putin<\/a>, which combines reverence for the tsarist and Soviet empires with aggressive militarism, Orthodox conservatism and relentless demonisation of the West.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt won\u2019t stop with Ukraine. They\u2019re already threatening Finland<\/a>, Estonia<\/a>, Latvia<\/a> and other countries,\u201d says Zarianych (27), listing states bordering Russia that have stepped up security after recent suspected Russian drone activity<\/a> over several EU and Nato members.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018He will destroy you\u2019: Trump urged Zelenskiy to accept Putin terms at White House meetingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"UkrainianUkrainian soldiers Ruslan Zarianych and Serhiy Taraniuk are recovering at the Unbroken rehabilitation centre in Lviv, western Ukraine, after surviving 2.5 years of imprisonment and torture in Russian jails following their capture during the battle for the port of Mariupol. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin <\/p>\n

\u201cThe story keeps repeating itself,\u201d says Taraniuk (31), who is from Crimea on the Black Sea, which Putin\u2019s troops occupied in 2014. \u201cThey want to go further and further, as they did under the tsars. There are still so many places in Russia that don\u2019t even have electricity or running water, yet they want to take more and more land.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has not explained why he thinks Putin is now ready to end Europe\u2019s biggest war since 1945, after making the claim last Friday in a White House meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After those talks, he urged Russian and Ukrainian forces to stop fighting and go home, leaving the current front line as the de facto border between the warring neighbours. Moscow has repeatedly rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire, however.<\/p>\n

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022 was the culmination of more than two decades in power that Putin used to jail or exile influential critics, crush independent media and political opposition, and restore a paralysing fear of the security services and official reverence for the Russian and Soviet empires.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn one jail, from six in the morning until 10 at night, they\u2019d put on a radio station that only talked about the Russian empire. The guards played Katyusha and other Soviet songs. One day they asked me about Stalin, and when I said I didn\u2019t know much about him they laughed and then they beat me,\u201d says Taraniuk.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Irish Times view on the Trump-Zelinskiy meeting: one step backwardOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"AA banner on the counter\u00a0in a cafe in Lviv in western Ukraine reads: “Respect the fallen. Help the living. Fight for prisoners of war”. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin <\/p>\n

\u201cThey made us learn the Russian national anthem … and of course only Russian was allowed. If they heard any prisoners speaking Ukrainian they would get a beating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zarianych says he used to wonder whether reports about the cruelty and strangeness of Russian prisons might be exaggerated.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they weren\u2019t,\u201d he says now, as he and Taraniuk attend a mental health rehabilitation course in a medical facility called Unbroken in the western city of Lviv.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 2 \u00bd years we had to listen to propaganda about Stalin and Lenin, about how Lenin built Ukraine. The guards listen to Soviet music or modern remixes of Soviet songs. They live in their own \u2018red\u2019 20th century,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussians live in a world of their own and are becoming more and more isolated … It\u2019s becoming something like North Korea. When you spend a lot of time inside that system, you start wondering whether what they say might be true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA message in support of Ukrainian POWs on a cafe window in Lviv in western Ukraine. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin <\/p>\n

While opposition to the Kremlin regime and criticism of the war is now effectively banned in Russia, state violence against Ukraine and individuals is free of censure \u2013 last month, Putin signed a law withdrawing his country from the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, which its parliament had ratified in 1998.<\/p>\n

In a report last month on Russia\u2019s treatment of Ukrainians, the United Nations human rights office said that \u201ctorture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment … including sexual violence, have been applied in a systematic and widespread manner against civilians in places of detention.\u201d In 2024 the UN reported that 95 per cent of freed Ukrainian POWs said they had suffered torture.<\/p>\n

Zarianych and Taraniuk are now recovering from their ordeal and planning their futures in civilian life. They are under no illusions about Ukraine\u2019s chances of reclaiming occupied territory, or how hard it would be to reintegrate people who have lived \u2013 in some areas for more than a decade \u2013 immersed in toxic Russian propaganda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI dream of going back to Crimea but I realise it\u2019s not possible now to get these places back militarily. Maybe in the future through diplomacy,\u201d says Taraniuk.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many people in occupied territory have been brainwashed,\u201d says Zarianych. \u201cIt\u2019s like a partly rotten apple \u2013 if it\u2019s reintegrated it could infect other parts of the country. So maybe we should look at this idea of freezing the front line where it is today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump claims the Kremlin is now ready to end its invasion of Ukraine, but Ukrainians…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,550,7,8,2264,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-137938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-russia","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-ukraine-crisis","22":"tag-world","23":"tag-world-news","24":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}