Kremlin authorised brutal torture of Ukrainian POWs since first weeks of full-scale war – WSJ
Pravda Ukraine
The leadership of Russia’s penitentiary system removed all restrictions on the use of violence against prisoners of war in the first weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. This decision marked the beginning of years of systematic torture of Ukrainian captives in Russian prisons.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Details: The Wall Street Journal noted that Major General Igor Potapenko, the head of Saint Petersburg prisons, delivered a direct message to the special forces units of the penitentiary service, who were assigned to oversee the influx of POWs, in March 2022, just weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Be cruel, don’t pity them,” Potapenko instructed.
He said that ordinary rules would no longer apply. There would be no restrictions on violence. He also canceled the requirement to use body cameras to record the actions of prison guards, which is mandatory in other Russian prisons.
Similar instructions were given to other units across the country, including in Buryatia, Moscow, Pskov and other regions. Letters were sent to prison administrations throughout Russia, ordering them to clear floors, wings and even entire prisons.
Quote: “Those meetings set in motion nearly three years of relentless and brutal torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war. Guards applied electric shocks to prisoners’ genitals until batteries ran out. They beat the prisoners to inflict maximum damage, experimenting to see what type of material would be most painful. They withheld medical treatment to allow gangrene to set in, forcing amputations.”
Details: Former guards confirmed that Potapenko’s order was perceived as a carte blanche for violence.
One of the first Ukrainian prisoners of war was Pavlo Afisov, who was captured in Mariupol in the early months of the full-scale war. The 25-year-old was transferred from prison to prison over two and a half years. He was released in October 2024.
Upon arriving at a prison in Russia’s Tver Oblast, north of Moscow, guards took him to a medical examination room, ordered him to strip naked and shocked him multiple times with a stun gun.
Quote: “When it was over, he was told to yell ‘glory to Russia, glory to the special forces’ and then ordered to walk to the front of the room – still naked – to sing the Russian and Soviet national anthems. When he said he didn’t know the words, the guards beat him again with their fists and batons.”
Details: As former guards and human rights activists said, this brutality served a clear purpose for the Russian authorities: to make prisoners more compliant for interrogations and break their will to resist.
The cruelty drained “any will or ability to fight again if they are ever swapped,” said Vladimir Osechkin, head of the Russian Gulagu.net human rights organisation, who helped Russian penitentiary officers flee the country and testify before the International Criminal Court.
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