Roman Sheremeta
Premium member
Professor of Economics, Board Member, Fellow
Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Nov 12, 2025
28-year-old border guard Yevhenii Sholudko survived russian captivity, where his captors ripped the skin off his back while he was still alive. During the torture, they stripped him naked and beat him with an iron rod tipped with metal balls. With each strike, the balls clamped together, tearing the skin off in strips.
Yevhenii says that some men could not endure the pain. Some fainted, others lost control of their bowels. He tried to lift those who lost consciousness — and for that, he was beaten even harder.
More of his quotes from an interview: “There was a guard named Nikita, a former soldier. He could kick a person twice in the same spot — and the person would fold in half. He beat guys to death, just with his feet. He crushed all their internal organs.”
“We went to the dining hall in formation, singing songs like ‘Katyusha’ and ‘Den Pobedy.’ If your voice dropped or you lost the rhythm, they beat you. They could run in during lunch and start hitting everyone.”
“In the Kizel detention center, there was a ‘standing regime.’ You stood all day: head down, hands behind your back. Talking was forbidden. If you turned your head for a second — that meant you were ‘talking.’”
“There was a ‘rubber room’ — no windows, no toilet, no water. They stripped you naked and left you standing there. If you needed the toilet, you did it right where you stood. At night, you could hear people screaming: ‘Please let me out, I’m cold, I feel sick.’ They would open the door, beat them, and lock it again.”
“In ten months, I lost 29 kilograms (64 pounds). When they started preparing us for exchange, they suddenly stopped beating us. They began giving us porridge swimming in oil so we’d gain a little weight.”
“When we were brought to Chernihiv, my family didn’t recognize me at first. Then my mom said, ‘It’s him — I recognize his eyebrows.’”
“The first weeks after coming back, I couldn’t stop eating. In the hospital ward, we barely slept — we just ate. Only a few weeks ago, I finally felt full again.”
Source: translated and adopted from Tymofiy Mylovanov
Comment from :
This is worse than anything recounted in the Gulag Archipelago. Yes I read every word of all three volumes, in the 1970s, since when I’ve had no illusions about Soviet Russia. Now we know Putin’s Russia is even worse. Satan would be proud. Yet Ukraine stands undaunted. Slava Ukraini! Glory to every hero.
Sergiu Simion
When I read about these atrocities, I have the strange feeling that these perpetrators and the country that systematically trained them are not from this planet, this world, and this universe.
An unbelievable bunch of ultra perverted human scum. as perverse as their own government. europe quo vadis?
Ellen Rombout
Gruesome. Torture in unspeakable ways. This ‘rubber room’ brings me back to a course on Germany’s history for history teachers. We stayed in Berlin and visited the former communist prison torture hell Hohenschönhausen in former East Berlin for so called dissidents. On a cold day in march, snow was falling, we visited this hellish complex. Suddenly we stood in this ‘rubber room’. In this room ice cold water was let in till people almost drowned. We were so shocked, it was such an awful place. I had to leave and go out. It was just unbearable. There were some school classes and nobody said a word. After the fall of communism and the Wall, it became a memorial. During the DDR-time people from South American dictatorships visited to learn how to torture. Torturing as an export product! Even this Hohenschönhausen as a memorial was hell on earth.
Kristina Kharin
Reading personal accounts like this is both heart-wrenching and infuriating. The atrocities committed by the RuZZians against Ukrainians are always difficult to stomach, but it’s crucial that these stories reach people across the world.
Sometimes I find myself jumping between sentences because it becomes too difficult to read. BUT these firsthand accounts shed light on the true extent of the terror and torture being perpetrated, and it’s essential that we bear witness to the realities of this war, and hold the enemy and perpetrator accountable.
Katerina Samosvatova
They are just that kind of cruel people, a very cruel nation. Each day this horrible war goes by, we understand more and more how actually different Ukrainian and russians are. The cruelty of russians is unbearable.
Mariya Yanchuk
Trump and all, who still believe in ruzzia and doing business with ruzzia, are supporting this…
Andy Narusewicz
Russia is a cancer.
I will be posting a new one from DW. P about the WW2 behaviour of ruZZia and the original nazis. These latest ones IMO are even worse.
Anyone with a lick of sense and a speck of morals must agree that russia is a cancer, a scourge to the human race, an unnecessary worm-infested, steaming pile of shit.