There’s a tendency to believe that proven tales of Russian brutality are simply signals of disorganized thuggery and murder committed at a relatively low level and without any official policy. More than three years into the war, there’s now clear evidence — from the treatment of prisoners of war (PoWs) to nighttime air attacks on sleeping civilians, and the mass kidnapping of children — that something far more sinister is underway.
The Kremlin has instituted carefully considered and sophisticated PoWs torture into a standard operating procedure. Testimony from thousands of returning Ukrainian PoWs exposes methodical and medieval brutality in absolute disregard of the Geneva Conventions, to which it is a party.
The unifying theme is that PoWs are not punished for infraction of inhumane prison rules (although they are), but merely for the fact of being prisoners. In scale and intent, the Russian policy is little different from that of Imperial Japan in World War II.
Among many now sharing their stories is Sergeant Yevhenii Malik, a Mariupol defender and veteran of the 36th Marine Brigade, who endured two and a half years in captivity. “I was held in several Russian camps for the prisoners of war, and in each of them torture was a daily routine,” he told this author. “They did things I cannot even share with my parents.”
Duct tape is used to immobilize captives, while batons, plastic tubes, and shock devices are standard tools of torture. Among the cruelties, needles under the nails are the least severe. Electric diodes are clipped to ears and fingers — sometimes to genitals — to interfere with heart function. Plastic bags are pulled over heads until the prisoners begin to suffocate. Messages such as Glory to Russia are branded into skin. At times, trained dogs are set on captives, leaving them with festering wounds. A bucket of icy water is often thrown on prisoners to revive those who lose consciousness from the pain.
In the overcrowded cells, the day begins at 6 a.m. with a mug of tea and a piece of stale bread. Then the captives are forced to stand motionless for many hours — no breaks, without bathroom access or even a view out of the window. Any slip, and they are dragged into the corridor, where brutal beatings follow. Broken ribs, bruised flesh of every shade, and blood mixed with urine are the least severe consequences of the standard treatment. Female captives, both military and civilian, are constantly threatened or subjected to sexual abuse.
Sgt. Malik continued: “I will never forget September 9, 2022 — the day a guard beat me with a level of cruelty I hadn’t thought possible, although we were brutally beaten almost every day. The reason — I was simply not undressing quickly enough after lights-out. Some prisoners lost hope and committed suicide. I’d also have preferred death over captivity had I known what awaited me.”
A cold shower is allowed only once a week and lasts just a few minutes. To reach it, captives are forced to run down the corridor through a gauntlet of guards with sticks. Often, even in winter, they are stripped naked with the windows wide open — a cruel mix of humiliation and physical abuse. Soldiers with patriotic tattoos endure even harsher pain. The key rule for all, though, is not to look into their torturers’ eyes.
This isn’t an anomaly, it’s a system. Torture is used not just to punish for service in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but also just for fun. Yevgeii says his friend was forced to confess to a crime physically impossible to commit. He was accused of killing a civilian woman under orders allegedly transmitted via a Motorola radio from 13km (8 miles) away — well beyond its range. Russian prosecutors don’t even bother to get their fabricated facts straight.
“One of the camps I stayed in was in a quiet provincial town, where the local prison is near a school building,” the sergeant continued. In summer, the windows were left open because of the heat. Meanwhile, “The torture room located next to our cell was busy as Russians were trying to beat out another false conviction from a Ukrainian captive, who was screaming his lungs out. A local elderly lady walking by with a grandchild noticed with irritation: “They could at least close the windows.”
Sgt. Malik’s fellow captives at Colony No. 10 in Mordovia told similar stories for an investigation by the Ukrainian media outlet, Skhemy. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, it has become one of the most closed-off places in the country.
What distinguishes Colony No. 10, they say, is not just the routine violence, but the deliberate sabotage of health. Infected wounds are left untreated until they fester. Prisoners suffering from broken bones, pneumonia, or mental breakdowns from constant abuse are denied any medical help. Moreover, those sworn to heal now tell the prisoners in their charge, without shame, that they don’t care if they die.
At least four Ukrainian servicemen died there of sheer exhaustion. Photos of those released show emaciated figures, some weighing less than 50 kilos (110lbs); grown men starved to the edge of death.
The most feared figure in the colony was a man the prisoners dubbed Doctor Evil — the camp’s medical officer, who has been unmasked as 34-year-old Ilya Sorokin, a doctor who struts the camp doling out punishment with a stun gun. According to multiple testimonies, he refused care to wounded PoWs and mocked their pain.
Among the captives are not only soldiers, but civilians like Serhii. Sgt. Malik recalls a 49-year-old man who spoke only Russian all his life, never wore a uniform, and never held a weapon — precisely the kind of person Putin claimed to be protecting. He was never formally charged with anything, yet he endured the same treatment and remains in captivity.
A human rights defender and a former serviceman, Maksym Butkevych, who was taken prisoner in 2022 and sentenced to long-term imprisonment on bogus charges, then held in a penal colony in occupied Luhansk until his release at the end of 2024, also underwent torture. Throughout his captivity, Lieutenant Butkevych sought to understand the roots of the system calibrated to degrade a human being and the psychology of his tormentors.
Some had simply embedded themselves in the machinery of repression for personal reward. Others, he noted, seemed to find deeper sense in their actions. “They think the outside world is afraid of them,” he said. “And for them, that alone is enough.”
Elena Davlikanova is a Democracy Fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Her work is focused on Ukraine and Russia’s domestic issues and their effects on global peace. She is an experienced researcher who, in 2022, conducted the studies ‘The Work of the Ukrainian Parliament in Wartime’ and ‘The War of Narratives: The Image of Ukraine in Media.’
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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