The soldiers had grunted as they tied up the prisoner – Kolya – in the “lastotska” or “swallow” position, a notorious method of torture long preferred by Russian forces. Then they got a job as they always did in this makeshift cell under the train station in Trostyanets, a city in northeastern Ukraine near the border with Russia. Dima remembers how Kolya, who had apparently publicly denounced Moscow, was subjected to particularly brutal violence. Even when Kolya was dragged into the blood-stained room, he refused to stop cursing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, triggering the relentless blows that rained down on him. Only when he was quiet did the boots crease out of the cell. Then Dima heard Kolya’s breath from a gurgling edge. “I screamed at the guards: ‘He’s dying, he’s dying.’ “I tried to push a bottle of water towards him with my legs tied,” says Dima, obviously upset. “All they did was laugh and say, ‘If he dies, he dies.’ “All Ukrainians must die.” “I continued to call Kolias but he did not answer”, adds the part-time engineer. Trapped in a purgatory of darkness that erased time, Dima believes that Kolya was killed on the second or third day of his captivity – but he can not say for sure. “They kept the body next to me until the morning they removed it and brought two more people,” he added. For 10 days, the survivors of this room – all citizens – say they were starving, tortured, subjected to multiple virtual executions, threatened with rape and forced to sit in their feces by soldiers under Trostyanets station. This is just part of a series of new testimonies obtained by The Independent that provide new evidence of possible war crimes in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region. Dima stands outside the train station where he was detained and tortured, which is now a stormy battlefield (Bell Trew) The Independent spoke to two of the survivors: Dima, the first to be taken prisoner, and Andrei, who says he was abducted by soldiers a few days later. Dima says Kolya was a prisoner of number four of at least eight people held there during the month-long Russian occupation of the city. It shows us the location, located in a basement below the main ticket office of the station. It was only a few meters wide and was still stained with blood. Three of those arrested are dead or missing: Koyla was killed and two others, including an army veteran, were beaten to death almost unconscious. Where they are still unknown. Andrei – detainee number six – says he was stabbed in the left leg, stripped and threatened with genital mutilation and rape. Andrei shows injuries to his hands and arms from being tied up and beaten for several days (Bell Trew) At one point, says the 33-year-old, Russian soldiers struck him in the head with an electric shock. The beatings were so fierce that he begged his captors to kill him. His wrists, legs and ankles still bear the marks of torture and he has lost the sensation in his right hand. “It was a nightmare. “It was the worst thing that has ever happened to me,” he added in a trembling voice. Moscow has repeatedly and categorically denied that it targeted civilians as well as committed war crimes in Ukraine, saying the allegations of torture, rape, summary execution and murder were “monstrous forgeries” aimed at tarnishing its reputation. But the Independent has gathered dozens of testimonies that point to possible violations of international law in many parts of the country: including the most recent one in Trostanyets. Even then, the railroad torture chamber fears it is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, the full scale of the Russians’ long reign of terror here is just coming to light as terrified civilians – worried that the city may be flooded again – are just now revealing what happened. Trostyanets in the northeastern Sumy region of Ukraine (The Independent / Datawrapper) These stories are part of a growing body of evidence of suspected war crimes across the country and echo the horrific stories told to The Independent in places like Bucha and Makariv in the Kiev region, more than 450 kilometers away, suggesting that The Russian military uses kidnappings, torture, and summary executions. On the outskirts of the capital alone, Ukrainian police said on Friday that they had so far collected the bodies of more than 900 civilians – 95% of whom were apparently shot dead. Karim Khan QC, the attorney general of the International Criminal Court, who recently visited Bucha, one of the bloodiest locations northwest of the capital, went so far as to declare Ukraine a “crime scene.” But researchers have only scratched the surface with Sumy. Richard Weir, Human Rights Watch (HRW) Crisis and Conflict Investigator across Ukraine, says the Trostyanets allegations leveled by The Independent “are a tragic addition to the growing list of abuses and obvious war crimes committed by Russian forces during the occupation of Ukrainian cities and villages “. “These incidents should be thoroughly and independently investigated and those responsible should be held accountable,” he said. Dima and Andrei say they decided to talk about what happened to them to help with the investigation. But it is difficult for them to open. “I’m still scared,” says Andrei. “I see their faces in my nightmares,” he adds quietly. I see their faces in my nightmares Andrei, a torture survivor Three weeks after the Russian troops left Trostianets, police received a call: another mutilated body was found. Bloody and bruised, the body of a man was found in the nearby village of Boromlya, next to a building used as a Russian base, just a day before The Independent arrived in the area. A local police officer investigating our case showed us photos of this body and others found in the Trostianets area. The bodies become almost unrecognizable, with their faces battered in bloody pulp. “They are all citizens, some were in the army, but they were retired,” he says. Before the war, Trostianets – a sleepy rural town of 20,000 – was best known for its chocolate factory, summer music festivals and once home to Tchaikovsky, who is said to have composed his first symphonic work there. It is now a stormy, muddy landscape of hell. Due to its proximity to Russia, Trostanyets came under attack during the first days of Vladimir Putin’s invasion on February 24. The full rage of the Russian forces quickly focused on her and the surrounding cities, as they represented a strategic gateway to the rest of the country. Trostyanets is located at the crossroads between the main route north to Sumy, the capital of the wider area, and the road south to major cities such as Poltava. Troops occupied the town and surrounding villages for 30 days, before a fierce counterattack by Ukrainian forces, with Russian forces withdrawing on March 25 and relocating further east. Damaged Russian artillery sits in the mud outside Trostyanets railway station – the site of a fierce battle (Bell Trew) Local authorities tell the Independent that the railroad torture chamber is just one of many cases of abuse, violence and murder under investigation. Men usually disappeared during the Russian occupation. Two police officers say they knew of five cases of corpses that either showed signs of torture or were tied up by gunshot wounds in and around Trostianets. The last body found a few days ago in Bromolya – a few kilometers north of Trostyanets – had “knife wounds to his legs and arm”. Two more bodies were found in Bilka, another nearby village. Both police officers spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons. They stayed in Trostyanets during the occupation, hiding as citizens in the city, and are worried about the consequences if Russian forces retake the area. “Many of the corpses have knife wounds, all their hands are tied or taped, beaten and bruised. “Some were shot in the head, one of the bodies was covered by machine gun fire,” recalls one of the officers. The barbarity inflicted on the civilian population here not only underscores the Kremlin’s book on Ukraine, but reveals the last chaotic and desperate days of Russian occupation of the region. Dima says they were detained because the soldiers wanted information, despite the fact that both he and Andrei had no military background and were merely part-time workers. They say the soldiers wanted to know the whereabouts of the Ukrainian forces and the identity of the territorial defense and police officers in the city. They also wanted to know about the back roads that their soldiers could follow after major bridges had been blown up. And so Dima and Andrei say the group was beaten daily, starved and denied permission to use the toilet – leaving them to sit in their feces for days. Dima says he underwent five different virtual executions where he was taken out of his cell, knelt on the floor, put his hands on a wall and shot in the head. “I did not know until the end whether I was alive or dead. Then they kept shouting: “Where are the Ukrainians? “Where are the Ukrainians?” He says. In the end I did not know if I was alive or dead Dima, victim of torture Andrei says he was first abducted on March 18, two days after Dima was arrested. Having dared to take supplies, the Russian forces loaded his head and locked him in an armored car. He was first taken to a chocolate factory, which locals say was also used as a torture center, where a soldier stabbed him in the left leg. Andrei says he was asked similar questions in Dima. When he could not answer …
