»Ukrainian woman claims Russians tortured her by boiling her hands and removing her nails«
A Ukrainian widow residing in the battle-torn city of Kherson claimed that she now resembles “a living corpse” after Russian soldiers subjected her to hours of torture and a mock execution at the grave of her husband.
The story of Oksana Minenko’s suffering and survival has emerged as part of a gut-wrenching expose published by Reuters, revealing horrible details of the alleged treatment of Ukrainians residing in Kherson during Russia’s nine-month control of the city.
Minenko, a 44-year-old accountant whose husband died defending the Antonivskyi bridge in Kherson on the first day of full-scale war, stated that she was repeatedly detained and tortured by Russian troops. Minenko’s husband died defending the Antonivskyi bridge in Kherson on the first day of full-scale war.
During multiple spring interrogations, she alleged the Russians dipped her hands in boiling water, took out her fingernails, and beat her face so severely with rifle butts that she required reconstructive surgery.
44-year-old Oksana Minenko, who claims she was frequently arrested and tortured by invading Russian forces, displays facial scars resulting from plastic surgery.
“One pain led to another,” said Minenko, standing at a temporary center for humanitarian relief with obvious scars around her eyes from what she described as an operation to fix the damage. “I was a corpse with a pulse.”
Minenko feels that her attackers singled her out because her husband was a soldier. During his funeral a week after his death, Russian forces arrived at the cemetery and forced Minenko to kneel next to his grave while firing mock execution shots, she alleged.
According to Minenko, individuals in Russian military uniforms with their faces concealed by balaclavas visited her residence three times in March and April, interrogated her, and detained her.
On one occasion, the men forced her to disrobe and then beat her with her wrists bound to the chair and her head covered.
“There is such a vacuum when you have a bag on your head and are being beaten; you cannot breathe, you cannot do anything, and you cannot defend yourself,” Minenko added.
Olha, age 26, claims she was assaulted, given electric shocks, and made to strip naked against her will.
In November, Russian forces withdrew from Kherson after being unable to hold the territory against Kyiv’s persistent attacks in March.
In other cases, more than a dozen alleged victims claimed to have been beaten, choked, electrified in the genitals and ears, denied of food and drink, and imprisoned in overcrowded quarters without sanitation for up to two months.
According to Andriy Kovalenko, the chief war crimes prosecutor for the Kherson region, “this was done in a systematic and exhaustive manner” to collect information on the Ukrainian military and suspected collaborators or to punish people who opposed the occupation.
Ukrainian law enforcement and international prosecutors assisting Ukraine support these charges. Moscow has continuously denied committing war crimes or targeting people during the eleventh month of what it calls its “special military operation.”
Andriy, a 35-year-old native of Kherson, stated that during a five-day incarceration in August, he was beaten, stripped naked, and given electric shocks to his genitalia and ears. When the current strikes, “it’s like a ball flying into your head, and you pass out,” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.
Aliona Lapchuk, a 55-year-old Ukrainian widow, stated that her husband Vitaliy was tortured and left to die by Russian soldiers in Kherson at the onset of the conflict.
According to him, his captors questioned him about Ukraine’s military actions, including the storage of weapons and explosives, because they assumed he had ties to the resistance organization.
According to Ukrainian authorities, much of the torture in Kherson took place in a converted office building that had been transformed into a vast detention center.
During the Russian occupation, more than thirty individuals were reportedly detained and tortured in a single area of the basement’s labyrinthine structure.
Electric cables are visible in a cell at a preliminary detention center, where Ukrainians were allegedly detained and tortured by the Russian government.
During a December visit to the building’s basement, the odor of human excrement filled the air, bricked-up windows blocked the light, and there were visible signs of what Ukrainian authorities say were torture instruments used by Russian forces, including metal pipes, plastic ties, and a wire hanging from the ceiling that was allegedly used to administer electric shocks.
Notches and phrases were scratched into the wall, which investigators believe were intended by inmates to count the number of days kept. One read: “I Live for Her.”
According to Ukrainian officials and more than a half-dozen Kherson residents questioned by Reuters, another place in the city where victims were allegedly interrogated and tortured was a police building known locally as “the hole.”
Liudmyla Shumkova, aged 47, stated that she and her sister, aged 53, were held captive at the property for the most of their more than fifty days of captivity this summer. She stated that the Russians inquired about her sister’s son because they suspected he was a member of the resistance movement.
Under a rubber mat near the entrance to the basement of a Kherson office building, where 30 individuals were allegedly detained for two months, a Gay Pride flag can be seen.
A lawyer, Shumkova, stated that around six prisoners were crammed into a cell with only a small window for light and one meal each day. During torture sessions, she recalled hearing male prisoners cry in anguish.
“Their screams were frequent and daily. “It could last two hours or less,” she remarked.
Yuriy Belousov, Ukraine’s top war crimes prosecutor, has shared the most comprehensive figures to date on the scale of alleged torture and detentions. According to these figures, the country’s authorities have opened pre-trial investigations involving more than a thousand people in the Kherson region who were allegedly kidnapped and illegally detained by Russian occupiers.
Belousov stated that officials have identified ten locations in the region of Cherson where Russian military conduct unlawful detentions. Approximately 200 individuals were allegedly tortured or physically injured while being held at these places, and a another 400 were illegally detained there, he added.
A bucket containing human feces is visible at the improvised detention center, where prisoners were confined in overcrowded, unsanitary rooms.
Belousov stated that authorities have begun pre-trial investigations into the suspected wrongful detentions of over 13,200 individuals across the nation.
Of more than 50,000 reports of war crimes that have been registered with Ukrainian authorities, Belousov said more than 7,700 have come from the Kherson region. He stated that more than 540 citizens remain missing in the region.
The chief of war crimes, Belousov, stated that more than 70 persons had been identified as possible torturers, and 30 people had been indicted. Some were top officers, including colonels and lieutenant colonels, he claimed, but the majority were low-ranking personnel.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague has begun an inquiry into the possible commission of war crimes in Ukraine.
»Ukrainian woman claims Russians tortured her by boiling her hands and removing her nails«