Accounts of Russian torture emerge in liberated areas
Orla Guerin, BBC | 1 hour agoIn north-eastern Ukraine, a counter-offensive has seen the nation's forces recapture swathes of territory, and drive out Russian troops.
But in the newly-liberated areas, relief and sorrow are intertwined - as accounts emerge of torture and killings during the long months of Russian occupation.
Artem, who lives in the city of Balakliya in the Kharkiv region told the BBC he was held by Russians for more than 40 days, and was tortured with electrocution.
Balakliya was liberated on 8 September after being occupied for more than six months. The epicentre of the brutality was the city's police station, which Russian forces used as their headquarters.
Artem said he could hear screams of pain and terror coming from other cells.
The occupiers made sure the cries could be heard, he said, by turning off the building's noisy ventilation system.
"They turned it off so everyone could hear how people scream when they are shocked with electricity," he told us. "They did this to some of the prisoners every other day... They even did this to the women".
And they did it to Artem, though in his case only once.
"They made me hold two wires," he said.
"There was an electric generator. The faster it went, the higher the voltage. They said, 'if you let it go, you are finished'. Then they started asking questions. They said I was lying, and they started spinning it even more and the voltage increased."
Artem told us he was detained because the Russians found a picture of his brother, a soldier, in uniform. . . .
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62888388