“Having less is better”: new russian crimes exposed in de-occupied Vovchansk

Currently, ten torture chambers have been uncovered in the de-occupied territories of the Kharkiv region.

One of them is in Vovchansk. The russians occupied the city on the first day of the full-scale invasion. From the very next day, they began raids on veterans, members of the territorial defense, and local activists there and in the surrounding villages. Today, it's unknown exactly when the torture chamber appeared here. The head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, Oleh Sinehubov, was the first to reveal that the occupiers had organized a prison on the territory of one of the infrastructure facilities in Vovchansk at the end of April.

The Rubryka reporter was one of the first after the liberation to get to the territory of the torture chamber, take pictures of the cells, and talk to a woman who spent several days in this prison.

We enter the territory with the military and immediately climb the stairs. We go out into a long corridor, from which doors lead to rooms. russians lived on one side, and on the other, the russians had rooms without windows, where they kept our prisoners.

In one of the rooms, there are one and a half liter bottles of urine under the wall—a wooden door on the floor and a table next to it. A sheet with the words "having less is better" sits on the table.

This room was probably used for torture.

The next room is a sleeping room. It is not surprising that the conditions of detention are terrible: old mattresses on the floor and a bucket used as a toilet in the corner.

We find the remains of a book with a handwritten Lord's Prayer.

There is an inscription on the wall, but the letters are partially erased:

"Denial is not with me.

Anger—why me.

Trade—maybe (further is  illegible text)

Depression—I'm tired

Acceptance—f*ch this."

Nearby are the dates and notches with which the prisoners marked the days spent here.

We go into the rooms where the occupiers lived. Everywhere we see dirt and scattered things. In one of the rooms, a portrait of Lenin hangs next to a red flag (also with his image). The impression of the prison is depressing, and it is hard to imagine what happened to those people who were forced to spend a lot of time here.

According to the head of the National Police, Ihor Klymenko, foreigners were taken to torture chambers in addition to Ukrainian citizens. At present, it is known about the illegal detention of seven Sri Lankan citizens in the Vovchansk torture chamber. These are medical students from Kupiansk. After the start of russia's full-scale offensive, they wanted to reach Kharkiv, but they were caught by the occupiers and put in a torture chamber. One of the students had his nails pulled out with pliers. Now the students are in Kharkiv, they are safe, but their psycho-emotional state corresponds to what they experienced.

In a village near the city, we meet a local. Before the war, she served in the border troops. Then her neighbors in the town "surrendered" her to the occupiers, and she spent two days in this torture chamber and then several months in a tent camp for prisoners near the city.

According to the woman, she did not know the exact location of the torture chamber, and she was taken there with her hands tied behind her back and with a sack on her head. She knew for sure that she was on the second floor. She was alone in the cell, and they did not take her to the toilet on the third floor. During the two days she was there, she was fed only once, after which she was taken to a prison camp, where she was the only woman. She spent several weeks there in a separate tent.

"They took a lot of people. A guy who took down the russian flag on the first day they hung it was also taken away. Many guys from the territorial defense from Kharkiv were here."

The woman also mentions her stay in a prison camp:

"There were eight people in the first tent, thirteen in the second. I sat alone in the third, and then someone else sat alone in the fourth. In the fifth, Dimka Laptiev, who was in the territorial defense, was the one who took down the flag. We talked through the tent. Everywhere there was a convoy, towers, everything was controlled. People also went to eat in tents, one at a time. I don't know where the camp was— probably not far away. You could hear cars driving. On May 9, a vehicle was moving, playing songs about victory.

They (Russians, — ed.) asked where I hid weapons. They thought that I had stayed at home with a gun. All of them are wearing balaclavas. No one said anything, didn't speak with us."

"russian world" shows itself in full—in every de-occupied city and village, there are prisons and torture chambers. Coming to a foreign land and turning people's lives into utter horror is russian style.