Ukrainian prosecutors have announced war crimes charges against four members of the Russian National Guard relating to their alleged actions in Kherson, which was for several months under Russian occupation.
The four individuals, who were accused in absentia of cruel treatment of civilians and breaking the laws of war, ran a torture chamber where more than 200 Ukrainians were detained from March to October of 2022, according to Ukrainian authorities. The Russians accused of running the center are Col. Aleksandr Naumenko, the alleged commander of the facility, Aleksandr Bocharov, Anver Muksimov, and Aleksandr Chilengirov.
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Andriy Kostin, the prosecutor general of Ukraine, said in a Facebook post that at least three prisoners were tortured to death while six others were forcibly taken to occupied territories. He also said that confessions were beaten out of detainees.
"They were mainly pro-Ukrainian activists, volunteers, veterans, relatives of law enforcement officers. Some were held for hours, others for months. In terrible unsanitary conditions," Kostin said. "They were beaten and tortured, restricted in food and water, denied medical assistance. At least 17 men were subjected to genital torture with electric current."
Ukrainian investigators found 11 torture chambers and 13 places of imprisonment in Kherson alone, he noted.
Russian forces occupied the southern city for more than eight months until they were forced out by a Ukrainian counteroffensive last November.
Oleksii Sivak, 38, a Ukrainian seaman who began painting Ukrainian flags and other national symbols around Kherson City, was arrested last August and tortured.
“Every question was followed by an electric shock or a punch,” he told the New York Times in an article published on Monday. “If you fell from the electric shock onto the floor, they kicked you and put you back on the chair.
“The moment you enter, they start doing it, and they take it in turns on this dynamo machine,” he added. “There was a man asking questions and men who were torturing.”
The men were all wearing balaclavas, he said, to protect their identity, though the one time he caught a glimpse of one of their faces, they put a pistol to his head to force a confession.
Sivak’s neighbor, Roman Shapovalenko, 38, was arrested the same day and reported similarly horrific treatment. He told the outlet that he was shocked electrically, had ribs broken, was stabbed in the leg, and lost consciousness multiple times while being waterboarded. He also said that at one point, the Russians took off the hat covering his eyes and forced him to attach the electrical wires to his genitals himself.
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A middle-aged Ukrainian woman from Kherson told House lawmakers last month that she was held in one of these centers, where her captors demanded she dig her own grave, though they didn’t kill her. She said she was able to flee back into Ukrainian-controlled territory and traveled through Crimea, Latvia, and Poland to escape.
Russian troops have allegedly committed more than 86,000 war crimes and crimes of aggression, including the abduction of nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children with the intent of indoctrinating them as Russians, according to Kostin.