Artem, a resident of the Ukrainian town of Balakliya, told the BBC how he and other detainees were tortured in Russian captivity. The town came under Russian occupation in early March, and was liberated by Ukraine on September 8, 2022.
Artem claims that he spent more than 40 days in Russian captivity. He, like other captives, was held in the local police building where he heard the screams of people who were being tortured by the Russians in neighboring cells. The military purposely left the noisy ventilation system on so that all prisoners could hear the screams clearly. Artem said he was tortured with electric shock.
They made me take two wires. There was an electric generator. The faster it spun, the higher the voltage was. They said, "If you let go of the wires, you're dead." Then they started asking questions. They said I was lying - and the generator spun faster.
Artem said that he was detained after the Russian military found a photo of his brother, a Ukrainian soldier, in uniform. According to Artem, one of the prisoners was held for 25 days because a Ukrainian flag was found in his home.
Artem's story was confirmed by the director of a local school, Tatyana, who spent three days at the police station. She said that she also heard screaming from other cells.
Journalists visited the police station. They found the text of the Lord's Prayer on the wall of one of the cells, as well as notes about how many days someone had been in detention. According to the Ukrainian police, the occupation authorities held up to eight people in cells designed for two.
At the end of August, Ukraine launched a large-scale counterattack. On September 11, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU), announced that Ukraine had regained control of more than 3000 square kilometers (1158 square miles) of territory. On September 13, 2022, Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Hanna Malyar reported that the AFU had liberated at least 300 settlements in Kharkiv region since the beginning of September.