Portraits show the hardships that soldiers have endured for two years in Russian captivity
Harriet Barber 18 June 2024
Roman Gorilyk’s pale skin clings to his ribs, his stomach sunken, as he stands for a photograph following his release from Russian detention.
His emaciated body is the result of a punishing two years in captivity as a prisoner of war, Ukrainian authorities say.
The former checkpoint guard at the Chernobyl nuclear plant was detained in the early days of Russia’s invasion, in March 2022, and on May 31 this year was one of 75 released in a prisoner exchange.
The portrait of Roman is one of a series of images documenting the hardships Ukrainian POWs have endured at the hands of their Russian captors.
Some photographs show the Ukrainian soldiers holding pictures of themselves from before they were detained. In some, their smiling faces are almost recognisable, such is the degree of weight loss they have suffered. Others show bruises and wounds – injuries they say they sustained when they were tortured in captivity.
“The condition of Roman and other Ukrainian prisoners of war evokes horror and associations with the darkest pages of human history – Nazi concentration death camps,” said the coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war, a Ukrainian government body which first shared the images.
Most of those released had suffered severe weight loss, authorities said, along with sores, lesions, and untreated chronic conditions.
At the time the photographs were taken, the Ukrainian soldiers had already added around 10kg to their body weights.
“The torture by starvation is monstrous, the beatings and violence are sophisticated,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, the Ukrainian presidential adviser. “There are no Geneva Conventions anymore… Russia again thinks it can avoid being held accountable for massive war crimes.”
The prisoners – who were released following negotiations led by the United Arab Emirates – say they were not visited by observers of the International Committee of the Red Cross during their detention.
“Not allowing observers to see prisoners of war, in violation of the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, is a conscious and purposeful policy of the Russian government. This is done specifically so that the International Red Cross cannot record how the Russian side treats prisoners of war,” said the coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war.
Under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war must be treated humanely and with dignity, and must be provided with basic daily food rations. “Rations shall be sufficient in quantity, quality and variety to keep prisoners of war in good health and to prevent loss of weight or the development of nutritional deficiencies,” the convention reads.
The release of prisoners of war was a key topic at Ukraine’s peace summit in Switzerland last weekend. The final joint communique called for a total exchange of all detainees and the return of all deported Ukrainian children.
Ukrainian officials say that 3,210 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been freed from Russian imprisonment as of May 31.
Eighty-nine of those taken from the Chernboyl nuclear power plant remain in Russian captivity.
PutinaZis are such foul, evil, pigshit people that if you show them this article they will think it’s comedy.
RuZZia must die.
And yet the ICC and the UN are still searching for evidence of genocide….
By the way, where is the OSCE? The Red Cross? Amnesty Intl’? They would be front and center if these photos were of Palestinians….
Selected comments from DT readers
Pat Gaffey
Russians really are animals. Blame Putin for all of his heinous crimes, but this is soldiers and guards, disgusting race of people.
Wendy Beattie
Disgusting Putin. A Devil like Hitler was.
Phil Dawes
If we ignore these crimes they will come back to haunt us. Like the crimes of Nazi Germany they can not be forgotten and the perpetrators must be punished.
Hel Han
The depravity and savagery of Putin’s evil regime is unfathomable.
The West cannot let Russia win.
Nata liia
And have you seen in what good conditions russian murderers and terrorists are kept in Ukraine? Just compare their fat faces to Ukrainian soldiers kept in russian captivity! Red Cross and other “peace” organizations demand Ukraine to provide russian murderers with good food, nice bed, tv time and home phone call! They don’t do anything for the Ukrainians in russian captivity! And russians torture and humiliate in the most disgusting sadistic sick manner! Sick nation!
Kieran Smithson
All at the behest of Trump’s mate, Putin.
And to think the orange coward might be back in the Whitehouse in November.
John Minnock
The Holodomor all over again…..
Terry Walsh
Reply to John Minnock
My grandparents survived the Holodomor somehow. Thank god. Then during the war they had to flee. Because of the Russians. Again. They managed to get out of there in time on a horse and cart (like the ones you see in the westerns mum always says). My grandparent’s relatives weren’t so lucky. The ones that survived the Holodomor got carted off to Siberia and were never to be heard from again. That side of the family just wiped out. So the Ukrainians will never ever forget or forgive the Russians for that.
Christopher Rayner
That Russia remains a member of the UN Security Council beggars belief. When the USSR invaded Finland in WWII, The League of Nations expelled them immediately.
The UN no longer has a moral compass and is nothing more than an enabler for dictatorships.
Anthony Mayer
Can’t wait for the steel bullet finding its lucky way to the brain of this fils de pute
One should ban Russian tourists to Europe or US unless documented as being against the current regime. Over 80 percent of these people support the current bellicose and fascist regime, let they stay there. “Raus schnell!” should be appropriate with them.
Ci Dillon
If we don’t stop Russia now they will inflict this upon the entirety of the Ukrainian population before exterminating many and cleansing the area ready for repopulation with ethnic Russians as they already have in places like Marioupol.
We must stand firmly with Ukraine and give them all the weapons they need to push back the Russian barbarians invading their country.
Raymond Young
Every place I’ve visited from Dubai to Crete to Cyprus, Malta & beyond; wherever & whenever I came in to contact I found them to be aggressive, arrogant & downright unpleasant.
God help Ukraine- with the West’s unwavering backing-to send this twisted nation back to their own country, and let them stay there forever.
John Russell
Watched the latest Nazi documentary on Netflix recently. The similarities between Hitler/Germany and Putin/Russia were quite striking. History is actually repeating itself and Putin is claiming to fight ‘Nazism’ purely as a deflection. Sad to see humans just aren’t learning, and the age of information has failed most people.
Paul Wusteman
We have to face the ugly, very non-PC, truth. Russian society is like this and has been like this for 500 years, uninfluenced by a Reformation or Enlightenment — 500 years of racist, autocratic savagery and delusions.
There is NO LIBERAL faction in Russia, waiting for the opportunity to convert Russia into some sort of western democracy.
The Russians talk about nuking us and recovering the boundaries of the old Russian Empire because that is just how they are. The ONLY THING that can change that is a collapse of the Russian economy that forces the Russian people to ask themselves – Is this all worth it?.
The sanctions and isolation of Russia are crippling it – slowly but surely. Russia is also becoming a Chinese colony, which at some stage the Russian people will object to. All the economic and social news from Russia is bad, a mad temporary wartime economic growth notwithstanding.
If the Ukrainians can hang in there, in the end, the Russian State will collapse under the strain and sanctions and popular discontent. Otherwise, we are faced with increasing uncertainty and Russian sub-war attacks on the West and its infrastructure and institutions, at huge continuing expense to us. There is NO dealing with Putin or any conceivable successor under the current regime – what they want is Empire. Any peace will allow Russia to refill the coffers, build more weapons and go again.
All we have to do is keep going with the sanctions, supporting the Ukraine and Russia finishes itself without the involvement of a single NATO soldier.
Thanks for sharing the comments, Scradge. If only the powers to be would think like them!
I’ve yet to be aware of an outcry from the various useless and corrupt international organizations, who are quick to jump on Ukraine for every little bit of shit.
As far as I am aware, no brand name politician or entity has said one word about this Holocaust-like behaviour of the russian pigs.
They all are pathetic, cowardly hypocrites. Any Afghani or Syrian “refugee” garners more sympathy with the scum politicians.