Ukraine claims to have discovered the bodies of 63 tortured victims near the newly recaptured city of Kherson. Russia has denied committing atrocities during its invasion on multiple occasions.
Each cell in a recently liberated police station in Kherson offers its narrative.
Some have clothes strewn about, one has a charred bed, and another has dog bowls and trash strewn about. A Russian flag is in the center of the floor in one of the rooms.
The story of Anzhela can be found in cell number six.
Here, she and four other ladies spent 31 days after being seized by the Russian military in June.
Before the February invasion of Ukraine, Anzhela, age 49, was a presenter on the Telethon channel. At the beginning of March, Russian armored convoys entered her hometown of Kherson.
As Russia’s hold on the regional capital grew, demonstrations were steadily suppressed and liberties were weakened. Armed men broke into Anzhela’s home in June, separated her from her lover, placed a sack over her head, and loaded her onto a bus.
Anzhela was brought from there to cell number six.
“Men were beaten on the third floor,” she recalls. “You can hear when someone is being tormented with electricity. It is an unusual sound.
“Men were wailing in agony”
After the Russians captured Kherson, according to investigators, they picked up anyone with ties to the Ukrainian military or anti-occupation protesters.
They claim to have discovered eleven unlawful jails and four torture rooms in liberated Kherson. More than 700 individuals are listed as missing.
It is feared that they are either deceased or illegally transported to Russian-occupied territory or Russia itself.
Now, Ukraine has disclosed the finding of dozens of tortured dead near the city. The minister of the interior, Denys Monastyrsky, stated that the inquiry into the crimes had barely begun, therefore “many more dungeons and burial grounds will be revealed.”
Anzhela describes with composure being subjected to psychological torture for almost a month. She frequently saw remains wrapped in plastic being removed after “excessive interrogations.”
She then exhales and describes the wounds she still wears.
She states, “There are some triggers.” “They created a particular sound when they opened the gates. It meant that more individuals were being interrogated.”
The journalist states that the constant illumination prevented her from falling asleep. After being set free, she discovered she could no longer sleep in the dark.
Anzhela was unaware that her partner was also being detained at the police station.
Oleksandr Maksimenko, 69, claims that he shared a room with 15 other men who were brutally beaten and tortured. Some individuals were electrocuted.
“It’s horrifying,” he recalls. “One of the men brought back to the cell after interrogation had a black tongue. It was so swollen that it no longer fit in his mouth.”
Oleksandr asserts that he shared analgesics with his cellmates. Temperatures frequently reached 40 degrees Celsius, and they were required to learn the Russian national anthem.
“One man was so severely injured that he was nearly completely blue from head to toe. “It took him eight days to regain the ability to stand,” he claims.
According to investigators, captives were routinely required to confess to being Ukrainian collaborators to be released.
Oleksandr was required to appear on Russian state television.
As the Russian occupation of Ukraine recedes once more, Moscow is once more accused of committing war crimes.
Russia continues to deny targeting civilians intentionally, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
In liberated Kherson, the damage is not so much structural; rather, the city is a place where everyone has a vivid story of conflict.
It appears to be a city that the Russians wished to portray as their own.
They hoped that targeting Oleksandr and Anzhela would help them achieve their objective.
