Professor Roman Sheremeta

Jan 08, 2026

“They stripped me naked and laid me next to a dead body. They said: ‘If you move, you’ll be next.’”

This is what russian soldiers told a Ukrainian man they captured near Mariupol in March 2022. He spent more than three years in captivity.

This is the story of Oleksandr Hurzhov,l.

Oleksandr is 30 years old and from Mariupol. Before the war, he worked part-time as a vocalist in restaurants. russian forces captured him less than a week after the start of the full-scale invasion.

Guards beat him, tortured him with electric shocks, and staged mock executions. They checked his phone, demanded information, and took his money. No formal case was ever opened against Oleksandr.

He lost weight from 82 kilograms to 45. The food consisted of watery porridge and a piece of bread. Hunger became another method of pressure.

In Taganrog, prisoners were forced through so-called “corridors,” where guards beat them as they passed. According to Hurzhov, several captives died during the intake process.

The worst torture involved electric shocks under running water. Medical care was not provided. For severe injuries, prisoners were given a few painkillers and sent back to their cells.

On May 25, 2025, Ukraine freed Hurzhov in a prisoner exchange. He saw russian soldiers — clean and well-fed. The Ukrainians emerged exhausted, barely able to stand.

After his release, Oleksandr wanted a hot shower, proper food, and a phone. Then he began singing again. He says singing is his main form of rehabilitation.

Source: translated and adopted from Tymofiy Milovanov

Comment from :

Vitality Luhinin

Good ruzzians? It is a myth. Barbarians are not able to be humans.

Sath Kanagarajah

The depths of evil the Russians perpetrate is terrible.
Thank God he survived.

Ellen Rombout

Hell on earth. Ruzzian hell! May he find his voice again. Oleksandr Hurzhov from Mariupol.

Mirela Stoia

The difference between a tyranny and a law-based state – this is just one example.

………..

This is Viktoriia Shvaiko. In a viral video, she tells a russian investigator how drunk russian soldiers broke into her home in Pokrovsk at night. They beat her husband for a long time and then shot him dead.

She describes in detail how they raped her and discussed killing her mother-in-law so there would be no witnesses. She begged them not to kill her, and one can only imagine what she felt while being raped by her husband’s murderers, with her own life hanging by a thread.

Later, when they sobered up, “conscience” supposedly awakened in these russian men. One of them knelt down and apologized. Of course, that did not bring her husband back, and the widow had already been raped multiple times in a brutal and unnatural way — but, as the saying goes, “what’s past is past.”

The russian soldiers gave the woman a bank card that they claimed had a million rubles on it (in reality, of course, it did not), along with a note containing the phone numbers of their relatives — so she could contact them “if anything.”

This, by the way, is very typical of the occupiers’ nation and has been romanticized many times in “great” russian literature: first kill, then sincerely repent. I suppose this is that same mysterious “russian soul” that so fascinates Europeans and Americans — when someone first gouges out your eye, then passionately kisses you and tells you what a great friend you are.

The woman speaks to the investigator and looks to him for sympathy. She asks how people can be such monsters. After all, she and her husband had been eagerly waiting for russia to come here.

Her husband had even wanted to join the russian army as a driver, to fight against Ukrainians. He just didn’t quite make it.

A tragic and instructive story that, once again, will teach no one anything. It is also noteworthy because here, too, ethnic Ukrainians were turned into russians through russian language and culture, and waited for russia to come to them instead of Ukraine. As a result, the man did not go to defend his country — and was beaten to death in his own home like cattle.

Source: translated and adapted from Serhii Marchenko

Comment from :

Alexandria Ursea

This tragic story exposes the harsh reality of war and the betrayal felt by Viktoriia and her family, who once believed in russian solidarity. Her husband’s death at the hands of soldiers he might have supported, highlights the devastating impact of misplaced loyalty and propaganda. The romanticized idea of the “russian soul” sharply contrasts with the violence, rape, and empty apologies Viktoriia endured. It seems the russian army’s brutality remains unchanged since WWII. Sadly, many still dismiss or mock the trauma experienced by those who lived through such horrors, like my parents and grandparents.

Bjarne Kim Pedersen

27 December 2025 A RUSSIAN CHRISTMAS STORY

Please take eleven minutes
and forty-five seconds
to listen to Victoria Victorovna Shvaiko’s testimony
from Pokrovsk.
Her husband believed there were
kind Russian soldiers.
He even wanted to drive for them.

They tortured him,
beat him with rifle butts.
He answered them respectfully.
They shot at his legs.
They shouted that he had supported
“Ukrops,”
even though they had baked bread for the Russians.
“Lookout”
shot him in the knee
and shot him in the head.
“Smile” finished it
with shots to the head
and to the heart.

After the murder they raped her,
first “Smile,”
then “Formation,”
finally “Lookout.”

Victoria did not dare resist
and believed it was over,
but they continued,
two at a time.
Meanwhile her mother-in-law fled.
This is what
Putin calls liberation.
She survived
and is now living dead after the encounter
with ’kind Russians.’

P.S. They also burned the house down.
She hopes that one day
she will be able to give what remains of her husband
a proper
burial.

Denys V.

‘mysterious ruzzian soul’
This story tells exactly why russia must be stopped