Strangulation, electrocution and forced labor – a Ukrainian woman has reported how she was tortured by Russians. She nevertheless returned to her occupied hometown.
Dealing with the Ukrainian civilian population in Russian-occupied areas has already brought the United Nations to the fore. There should be systematic torture with the knowledge of the Kremlin or even on its orders. This has now been confirmed to the British “Guardian” by former administrative employee Olena Yahupova. She reports on forced detention, electric shocks, forced interviews for Russian state television and “arbitrariness” by the Russian secret police.
Yahupova spoke to the newspaper about the situation in her hometown of Enerhodar in the south-eastern Zaporizhia region, which she was only lucky to escape. In the area is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, Zaporizhia, which fell into the hands of Russian troops in spring 2022. Since then, two-thirds of the population is said to have fled. According to Mayor Dimitri Orlow, who is also living in exile, only 15,000 of the 53,000 people are still in the occupied city. He estimates that at least 500 people have been kidnapped and tortured.
Among them Olena Yahupova. According to the Guardian, she was arrested by the Russian occupiers in the city in October 2022. Neighbors she knew apparently denounced her and told the FSB secret police that her husband was a Ukrainian military officer.
Torture with wire noose, gun and electric shock
At first, as a local government employee, she was not targeted by the occupiers, she told the newspaper, partly because she did not take part in anti-Russian protests. One day, however, she was taken to the local police station by FSB officers.
“They tied my hands to my ankles,” Yahupova said. Strangulations happened regularly. “One held your neck, another pinched your nose,” Yahupova said. The officials wanted her to reveal the whereabouts of her husband and other people with military connections in the city.
During the torture, a wire noose was wrapped around her neck, a gun was held to her forehead, and she was electrocuted. According to Yahupova, the officials had announced their actions beforehand, which made the situation even more cruel. A team of five or six FSB officers carried out the violence. “They enjoyed it,” says Yahupova.
A Russian soldier in front of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant (archive photo): The Ukrainian region of the same name is currently occupied by the Russians. (Source: IMAGO/Konstantin Mihalchevskiy)
Yahupova was conscripted to forced labor
The torture stopped after two days, but Yahupova remained in prison. At times she was held in a cell with 15 inmates, she tells the Guardian. On some days there was no food, in winter the prisoners slept on the floor.
According to her own statements, Yahupova also had to be used for a fake video for Russian propaganda, with which she was supposed to appear on the Russian news. One officer “threatened to shoot me” if she didn’t comply, she says. In the video she was supposed to complain about alleged Ukrainian shelling. According to her, the video was filmed in October last year and can still be seen on the Telegram channel of the Russian propaganda news agency Ria Novosti. The shelling, she says, came from the Russian side.
Later, the occupiers obliged them to do forced labor: “We had to dig trenches in the freezing weather for two months.” According to her own statements, she was only released after a few months, when local residents intervened that the forced labor was unjust. Yahupova first fled to Estonia, but returned to her home region of Zaporizhia, she told the Guardian, despite the occupation. She said she enrolled in the Ukrainian army and renewed her vows to her husband. In this report you can read how Ukrainian women are fighting against Putin’s troops.
