As writes WSJ, a few weeks after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the head of St. Petersburg prisons, Major General Igor Potapenko, addressed an elite unit of guards tasked with overseeing the influx of prisoners from the war: «Be ruthless, don't spare them». He announced that the usual rules would not apply, there were no restrictions on violence against Ukrainian prisoners of war, and he canceled the body cameras mandatory in other Russian prisons, the publication claims.
Three former prison employees, who entered the witness protection program after testifying at the International Criminal Court, told WSJ, how Russia planned and carried out what UN investigators called widespread and systematic torture. Their stories were supported by official documents, interviews with Ukrainian prisoners, and a person who helped Russian prison officials defect.
According to these employees, during shifts, guards constantly wore balaclavas. Prisoners were beaten if they looked the guard in the eye. According to one of the former officers, these measures, along with a monthly rotation, were taken so that individual guards and their superiors could not be identified later.
Former guards reported that stun guns were used so often, especially in the showers, that staff complained about running out of batteries too quickly.
Pavel Afisov, captured in the city of Mariupol in the first months of the war, was one of the first Ukrainian prisoners detained in Russia. For 2.5 years, 25-year-old Pavel was transferred from prison to prison in Russia before being released last October. He told journalists that the most terrifying were the beatings when he was transferred to new prisons. After arriving at a correctional colony in the Tver region, guards took him to a medical examination room and ordered him to strip naked. They repeatedly shocked him with a stun gun, as well as shaved his head and beard. When it was over, he was ordered to shout «glory to Russia, glory to special forces», and then ordered to walk to the room's exit — still naked — and sing the Russian and Soviet anthems. He said he didn't know the words, so the guards beat him again with fists and batons.
One of the former penitentiary system employees, who worked with a team of medics in the Voronezh region, reported that prison guards beat Ukrainians until their police batons broke. According to him, the boiler room was littered with broken batons.
Guards intentionally beat prisoners in the same spot day after day, not allowing bruises to heal and causing infection inside the accumulated hematomas, leading to blood poisoning and muscle tissue decay. According to one of the publication's sources, at least one person died from sepsis.
Former Ukrainian prisoner of war, 25-year-old Andrey Yegorov recalled how guards in a prison in the western Bryansk region of Russia forced prisoners to run 100 meters down a corridor holding mattresses over their heads. Guards stood aside and hit them in the ribs as they ran past. When they reached the end of the corridor, they were forced to do squats and push-ups. Every time they got up, the guards hit them with fists or a baton.
During a medical examination after the exchange, Yegorov learned that he had five broken vertebrae. He is undergoing treatment for his injuries and working with a hospital-appointed psychologist, but in conversation with journalists, he said that the psychologist is unlikely to help.
Photo: Reuters