Roman Sheremeta

April 22, 2026

Fractured nasal bones. Blows to the ears that rupture the eardrums. Electric shocks. Simulated drowning. Burns. Cutting.

“Sometimes, after hearing these stories, you just want to shut down. You cannot comprehend how people endured this and remained sane,” says doctor Oleksii Dzhirov.

Dmytro Sirenko returned from russian captivity on March 5, 2026. He now undergoes treatment every day. One of the procedures is electrical muscle stimulation: a current of 8 milliamps causes his muscles to contract rhythmically.

Another involves soaking his legs in warm water. “It’s like a jacuzzi, just for the feet. I was on my feet constantly for 10 months. They were swollen and turned blue.”

In the rehabilitation room, he is asked to stand in front of a mirror and do half-squats. He resists at first: “I don’t have any muscle mass.” Eventually, he agrees. Then he adds that in captivity he used to do up to 1,500 squats. “I couldn’t feel my legs.”

Vladyslav lies with his eyes closed during an electrosleep procedure. Weak impulses are meant to bring the body into a sleep-like state. “I don’t actually sleep. I just lie here,” he says with a faint smile. He still struggles with sleep.

Oleksandr Karpov, head of the surgical department, says: “Every conversation is, in itself, a shock.” Doctors must rely entirely on patients’ accounts, as there is no medical documentation.

A urologist explains: “Torture of the genitals is very common. It involves both electric shocks and foreign objects.” But he adds: “The first question these men ask is whether they will be able to have children, whether they can live a full life. The good news is that everything is treatable, and they will be okay.”

Psychologist Umida Petrenko says: “Those released from captivity are not adapted to normal life. We are helping them learn to perceive the world again, to live again. They need support and care. But we should avoid saying ‘I understand you’ or ‘I know how hard it was,’ because we do not know—and never will.”

Every weekday, for two hours, patients review photographs of the missing and the captured, trying to identify them and record information. Dmytro says he recognizes many of them personally. “When I was changing in the room, I looked out the window. There were people standing with flags. But I cannot process it that quickly—you still don’t understand who you are or where you are, and then they immediately show you photos.”

Dmytro says: “Now I have everything. I am home. I am a free man.”

Source: translated from Tymofiy Milovanov

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Freedom Has a Cost

Every day in Ukraine, people pay the ultimate price for freedom.
Soldiers on the front lines.
Civilians in their homes.
Children in their schools.

For Ukrainians, sacrifice is not an abstract idea. It is the reality of daily life.

Last year, that reality became deeply personal for me.

My friend, Vlad Seniuk, was killed by a russian drone strike while defending Ukraine. Three of his brothers-in-arms survived because Vlad absorbed the full blast.

He did not.

Vlad’s story is both heroic and heartbreaking.

Read the full story here: https://open.substack.com/pub/romansheremeta/p/freedom-has-a-cost

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President Volodymyr Zelensky met with the Kharkiv-born teenager, who became the first player in history to win the European championship without a grandmaster title.

Zelensky awarded him the “Future of Ukraine” honor and praised his achievements, noting his journey in chess since the age of five and his growing list of national and international victories.

Source: Kyiv Post

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Why do some people continue to support Trump despite contradictions and unfulfilled promises?

Most explanations focus on values, principles, or policy.

My readers have suggested additional explanations — fear, misinformation, even moral failure.

These factors may play a role. But they are incomplete — and in some cases misleading.

The real answer lies at the intersection of identity, incentives, and commitment.

I break it down here:
👉 https://open.substack.com/pub/economicsofpower/p/why-do-some-people-still-support

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This photo was taken in 2022, after the liberation of Bucha.

It shows a 70-year-old grandmother, Nadiya Trubchaninova, standing over the grave of her son.

She survived, but the russians took her son’s life.

For more than a week, she hitchhiked every day, searching for his body — until she finally found it.

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“Every country has its own mafia. In Russia, the mafia has its own country.”

Garry Kasparov

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Russia sentenced Danylo to 12 years in prison for donating to a Ukrainian charity foundation.

He lived in Snizhne, a mining town 80 km from Donetsk, under occupation since 2014. He donated because he wanted to help those who were worse off. He is now in a russian pre-trial detention center.

In December 2023, he planned to fly to Istanbul to obtain a foreign passport and leave the occupied territory. He was using a Ukrainian passport, and that is exactly why he was detained at the Volgograd airport.

Russian security forces found bank transfers on his smartphone. Danylo remained under occupation but continued donating because he wanted to help those who were suffering even more. He had a clear pro-Ukrainian position.

In the Volgograd detention center, he was given torn underwear and forced to sleep on the floor due to a lack of space. Later, he was placed in isolation and then moved to a basement cell with a sealed window, no light, and mold on the walls.

Prisoners were beaten, forced to shout “Glory to russia” with a bag over their heads, made to memorize the anthem, and required to sing it every day.

Danylo has now lost a lot of weight. He says he eats once a day, “watery soup with a few pieces of potato floating in it.”

He is held among hardened criminals who treat him with particular hostility.

He is holding on with all his strength and constantly asks if there is any news. For Danylo, and for many others there, the most important thing is to hear that they are not forgotten and that they will be brought home.

Source: translated from Tymofiy Milovanov

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Thank you to everyone who has subscribed, read, and shared my work. I truly appreciate it.

I’m building two spaces on Substack:

The Economics of Power — structured pieces on incentives, institutions, and global conflict:
👉 https://economicsofpower.substack.com/

Roman Sheremeta — personal reflections on Ukraine, faith, and public life:
👉 https://romansheremeta.substack.com/

I plan to write consistently and build something meaningful here.

If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can join here:
👉 https://substack.com/@romansheremeta