We spoke to a civilian prisoner who returned home through perseverance, mutual aid, and luck. Hereʼs his story

Since the beginning of the Great War, Russia has held more than 16 000 Ukrainian civilians captive. In October 2022, Yuriy, who lived in the Kherson region, became part of this terrible statistic: Russian security forces took him hostage on trumped-up charges. He endured separation from his family, torture, and interrogations during which he was demanded to confess to things he did not do. Yuriyʼs story has a happy ending. Unlike many civilian prisoners, he managed to return home after international organizations learned where he was being held. Babel correspondent Valeriia Tsuba recorded his story (the text contains descriptions of torture).

Yuriy met the Great War in Veletenske, a village near Kherson, on the right bank of the Dnipro River. He was sixty years old. He lived in his native village all his life: he studied there, fell in love for the first time, married twice, raised his son and the children of his second wife. Until his retirement, he served in the State Emergency Service, receiving the rank of major of civil defense.

The village where Yuriy lived with his wife was occupied by Russia on February 24. His older brother, who was disabled, lived with him: after the death of his parents, Yuriy became his main support. Yuriyʼs son is a sailor, and in February he was on a voyage, and his family managed to leave the Kherson region.

Yuriy did not want to leave his home. During the occupation, he worked at a local agricultural company and was engaged in farming. This is how he lived the first eight months of the occupation.

1

In the fall, Russian soldiers patrolled the streets of Veletenske more and more often. They came to Yuriʼs house several times with "inspections" and later became more and more openly looking for an excuse to take him away. Many times, Yuriy argued with his fellow villagers, who were happy about the arrival of Russia.

“I didn’t understand: if you want to live in Russia so much, why are you staying here? I asked them that. Later I found out that they had even reported me several times. This is not surprising: there were announcements on the streets on poles promising 50 thousand rubles for the surrender of a ʼpro-Ukrainian,ʼ” Yuriy recalls.

On the afternoon of October 13, 2022, while his wife was at work, someone came to his house again. This time, a large group of armed men. Three of them appeared to him to be FSB officers, because they were distinguished by their equipment, and the rest were guarding them. It was these three who asked the typical questions: who was Yuriy and what did he do?

Then they started beating him with a stun gun — on the neck, between the shoulder blades, on the wrists, the skin on his shoulders was completely burned. Yuriy managed not to lose consciousness. The attackers didnʼt like this, so they beat him even harder — for about an hour. Everything happened in front of his brother, who couldnʼt do anything to help him.

Then they searched the house and took Yuriy to a neighborʼs house. They gave all his documents, his wifeʼs jewelry, and money to her, supposedly "for safekeeping". They put a black knitted hat on his head, wrapped it with tape, put him in a minibus, and drove away.

Yuriy was detained as a real criminal — the roads were blocked with armored personnel carriers, and a quadcopter circled over the street where he lived.

2

Yuriy was brought to the basement of the district court in Bilozerka, a village 15 kilometers from Kherson. There he was tortured again with an electric shocker. And when they couldn’t get a confession out of him, they took him to a detention center in Kherson.

“They took me to my cell. When I was changing clothes, my cellmates saw that my back was burned almost to the bone along the spine,” Yuri says.

On October 16, Yuriy was taken for interrogation. He was told that because of him, the Ukrainian Armed Forces had defeated an elite Russian airborne assault unit, and that they had tortured him again and threatened to kill his son, saying, “their people are everywhere”. Yuriy lost consciousness twice, but did not confess.

"I wasnʼt hardened for this. Iʼve only experienced violence once in my life, back in school, when I was 16. Thatʼs why I considered myself weak in captivity. At some point I told myself that I have dignity, and these people are just inhumane. And I also have a family. When I heard about my son, I tried to break free from those handcuffs. I think, right now Iʼll jump up and grab someoneʼs throat. Theyʼll kill me, but they wonʼt touch my son," says Yuriy.

After Yuriy tried to escape, he was taken to a "suicide cell". There was no furniture, the walls and floor were covered with tarpaulins. Lying down or sitting was forbidden. Yuriy stood there for two days, listening to the screams of the prisoners coming from behind the door.

3

Over the next week and a half, Yuriy was transferred twice more: first — to the regional police station in the city of Hola Prystan — there were twelve people in the cell, and everyone slept on the cold floor; then — to the village of Chaplynka, to another regional police station.

"In Chaplynka, they didnʼt interrogate you, but they beat you with a baton. If they thought you looked the wrong way or werenʼt singing the Russian anthem with enough enthusiasm. Once, during the formation, I picked up a nut from the ground — for that, they took me out and threatened me with execution," says Yuriy.

Yuriyʼs family didnʼt know what was wrong with him for a long time. In the end, he was lucky. Yuriy had a cellmate in Chaplynka, whose wife went to get her husband after he was detained. She went around the pre-trial detention center and regional departments and found her husband in Chaplynka. She managed to deliver food packages to the cell, hiding notes in them. On one of these pieces of paper, her husband wrote the names of everyone who was sitting with him in the cell. The aunt of another cellmate spread this information on Facebook. Thatʼs how Yuriyʼs family found out.

"I only found out about what was happening to my family at the beginning of 2023. I was worried that my wife and brother would not be blackmailed during the occupation. Because I heard from my cellmates that threats to relatives were not always just words," says Yuriy.

In the spring of 2023, the hostages were allowed to call home. Yuriy heard the voice of his relatives for the first time in six months and realized that they were waiting for him. He learned that the family was doing everything possible to find him. After the kidnapping of her husband, his wife left for Poland, worked and tried to track him down through international organizations. This became the greatest motivation to live for Yuriy.

"When I knew that my family was safe, I didnʼt hang my head. We played backgammon and chess in the cell, we drew Monopoly [game] ourselves. People were gradually released from our cell. The first one was released back in November. I and one other person were the last to leave. The FSB officers arrived, interrogated us, and persuaded us to cooperate. We didnʼt agree, but they let us go," says Yuriy.

4

Yuriy was released from captivity on May 17, 2023. Before his release, his documents were returned to him. For several days, he lived at the home of a former cellmate. Friends helped pay for the transporters, and he set off. From the occupied part of the Kherson region, Yuriy reached Simferopol, from there he drove to Russia, then — to Latvia and Poland, and then — to Kyiv.

"In the capital, I was met by my childrenʼs friends. I rested and went to Cherkasy region, where my wife was already waiting for me. She arrived in Ukraine a few days before my return. There we were finally reunited. And then I contacted my brother, who was staying in Veletenske. I did call everyone at the time... All of them wanted to make sure that I survived," says Yuriy.

Yuriy called the police. In Ukraine, he was on the missing persons list, so he had to prove that his story was not a fabrication. He went to Kherson to testify. After many conversations with SBU, medical and psychological examinations, they officially recognized the fact of his abduction.

Yuriy and his wife moved to Odesa. After some time, he was able to evacuate his brother from the Kherson region. He was on time — their house was shelled in Veletenske shortly after.

For the first month after his release, Yuriy could only speak in a whisper due to his injuries. He was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and five broken ribs. He now babysits his grandchildren and keeps in touch with his cellmates.

"I have such a big family now. Weʼve all become like relatives," Yuriy says.

The NGO "NUN" helped to prepare the material within the framework of a grant from the EU Project "Law-Justice", implemented by Expertise France.