Ukrainian officials claim to have discovered a “torture chamber” used by Russian troops in the recently liberated Balaklia in the Kharkiv region.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has tweeted what its officials believe to be a “torture chamber” used by Russian troops to hold Ukrainian prisoners in the recently liberated Balaklia in the Kharkiv region.
The cell has a Ukrainian prayer scrawled on the wall.
With around 8,000 square kilometers recaptured so far, authorities have repeatedly warned of the horrors Russian troops have left behind. After liberating the Kiev region, Ukrainian forces discovered a number of war crimes, including mass graves and the bodies of civilians showing signs of torture. They expect to find the same in the Kharkiv region.
A Russian “torture chamber” would have prayers scrawled inside
Balaklia residents declared for The Guardian that they had little interaction with the Russian forces, who remained largely on the outskirts of the city. Although they lived in the middle of an almost total information vacuum – with sporadic phone signal, no mobile internet or wifi and television for most of the period – and had to do without basic utilities and cope with looting by Russian forces and the terrors of the bombings, did not experience the scenes of torture and execution seen in other parts of the country.
But Serhiy Bolvinov, the head of the Investigation Department of the National Police in the Kharkiv region, said 40 people were detained during the occupation. A local resident stated for the BBC that he was held by the Russians in the city police station for over 40 days and that he was tortured by electrocution. The man, identified only as Artem, said he could hear screams of pain and terror coming from other cells.