‘This Evil Must Be Defeated’: Systematic Russian Torture

Oleh Kotov is dying, and he knows it. His first days of freedom after so many days in captivity are his last in this world. He can only taste his lunch today – basil soup – through the aromas rising from his stomach to his mouth. His wife, Svitlana, draws it up from a glass with a large syringe, inserts the syringe into the tube, and pumps the liquid through the tube that leads through his abdominal wall into his stomach. Meanwhile, he sits there, his arms propped up on the bed, his legs dangling over the edge, a 59-year-old man, emaciated to the bone. He forces a smile and says in Russian: “Delicious.” Outside the window, birds are singing; down in the courtyard, people are chatting at the entrance to the hospital where he is staying. Oleh Kotov speaks in short sentences. Every breath rattles. He gasps for air. He spent more than four years in Russian captivity – without charge, without conviction. In June, he was released in an exchange – only to die.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. “This is the evil,” he says, gasping for air. And again: “This is the evil.” He had overheard people in prison talking about him having cancer. But he had always been told he only had a persistent case of pneumonia. No treatment, just a few injections he couldn’t explain. By the time he was exchanged, he could barely stand. The metastases had already spread throughout his body. Other Topics of Interest Ukraine Disables 7 of 10 Largest Wildberries Warehouses The Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced that recent strikes have disabled seven of the ten largest logistics centers of the Russian e-commerce company Wildberries. Svitlana Kotova shows a photograph from before the Russian invasion in February 2022: A man with thick, dark hair and a rosy complexion is pictured, cheek to cheek with her, smiling, carefree. A picture from another world, a world where there was a future. Where time was irrelevant. Back then, there was no large-scale Russian invasion. Two spry, newly retired people enjoying life. The Russian occupation was still relatively fresh when Oleh stood in the street in his village with his neighbors. The area in the Kharkiv region had already been under Russian occupation for a little over two months. He and his wife hadn’t been able to flee because of his mother-in-law, who couldn’t leave. And then they came on April 23, 2022: “In fancy cars,” as Oleh Kotov says. Fifteen men in uniform. Russian soldiers. “They knew we lived there. They came straight up to us. They asked, ‘Are you Kotov?’” They came into the house, they took all the electronic devices in the house – and him as well. (Photo by Stefan Schocher) In a nearby train station building, they started asking questions. At first, everything was normal, says Kotov. But then they began asking about his sons. What did they do – the younger one was studying in Western Europe, the older one was working in Kharkiv. Kharkiv was never under Russian occupation. But at that time, the Russian army was constantly trying to storm the city near the border with Russia using brute force. Kotov says: “I wasn’t going to say that my son was working in Kharkiv so they could blackmail him.” But then a man came with slips of paper. They had everything: date of birth, name, address. He says: “They knew I wasn’t telling the truth.” From then on, nothing was “normal” anymore. “That’s when it started,” Kotov says. The conversation then moved to the basement. He asks me: “Do you know what a ‘Little Star’ is?” He grimaces in pain, pauses, then continues speaking. “You stand with your back to a wall, arms and legs spread wide.” Kotov demonstrates it sitting down; he lacks the strength to stand. “And then someone starts punching you in the chest with full force. Once, twice, three times, four times.” The man must have been some kind of boxer, he says. That’s how hard he hit. “He landed five blows. On the sixth blow to my heart, I fell over.” Others then helped him up. They gave him a pill. Then they brought a Tapik. A Tapik is a Soviet field telephone with a hand-cranked generator. Converted, it is systematically used by Russian occupation forces as a torture device to administer electric shocks. This, too, has a name: “Crocodile” – because of the clamps attached to nipples, genitals, limbs, and anus. Kotov doesn’t go into detail. He only says that he felt like his heart was burning in his chest. Torture as the rule, not the exception What Oleh Kotov is recounting are the experiences of thousands of civilians who, since the Russian invasion and even before, have been abducted by Russian occupation forces in eastern Ukraine – without charge, and therefore without trial, arbitrarily. There is no legal counsel, no communication with relatives. Consequently, it is difficult to say how many there are. Such ordeals usually begin in basements that have been converted into secret prisons. Subsequently, many of those abducted end up in the regular Russian prison system. However, there is one key difference compared to regular prison inmates: there is no accessible information about these prisoners, no communication with the outside world. These are not isolated incidents. This is systematic. An report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on the abduction of civilians in Russian-occupied territory states that the mission found that the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of Ukrainian civilians was occurring on a large scale and showed “signs of a systematic, consistent, and deliberate pattern of behavior specifically targeting Ukrainian civilians.” Civilians were systematically targeted in such campaigns as part of filtration programs. A key criterion: loyalty or presumed disloyalty to the occupying regime. The fact that Oleh Kotov’s son was in Kharkiv was enough to raise suspicions. The OSCE expert commission refers to these practices as crimes against humanity. This is a strictly legal term that describes acts of violence committed “as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population, with knowledge of this attack.” In other words, crimes against humanity require a high degree of organization, a chain of command, an intention, and a systematic approach to implementation. So, for Kotov, the cellar at the train station was just the beginning of an odyssey that lasted four years: First, they took him to Hoptivka, on the border with Russia. There was a small, five-story hotel there that served as a prisoner-of-war camp. “There was a large room,” he recounts. They put him in a corner there – 15 men stood around him. One of them sat down in front of him, pulled a knife from his trouser pocket, opened it, and said: “Should we cut off your ears?” Kotov taps his ear. It’s still there; the wound has healed. “They just wanted to smash my ribcage,” he says. First, he sat down, then he had to stand up, at some point he fell over, at another point he lost consciousness. The man with the knife just stood there while the others beat him – for four hours or so. But he can’t say for sure. Then the tapik again, while he lay on the floor. “You pull your legs up,” he says, “while two others hit your feet.” This went on for almost a month. For 18 days, he wasn’t allowed to use the toilet. Everyone there beat the prisoners: soldiers, guards, officers. A Ukrainian who had switched sides was also present during the interrogations. At one point, Kotov was taken back for another interrogation: “The commandant was there, he looked like a Hollywood star,” he says. “He said, ‘Sit down, do you want 100 grams (of vodka)?’” He refused. Then the beatings continued. After his stay in the “hotel,” Kotov had at least three broken ribs. Then it was off to Shebekino in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast. He had known the place before “because of the good noodles” they made there, Kotov jokes. He himself only got to know the camp: 25 tents. And there again, the “welcome” – with batons. More interrogations. More beatings. The camp’s specialty: surprise attacks by the guards at night – with batons: 73 centimeters long. “On his ass, in the ass. A young kid was yelling...” Kotov pauses. The crocodile again. Or gas cylinders that they tied to their legs and lit. And then hot irons on the soles of their feet. There was also the “Rodnichok,” waterboarding – you lie on a bench, face up, gagged with a cloth while water flows into your mouth, but you can’t swallow. Or also: “Mashenka” – the sledgehammer in various weight classes. Or the “dental instruments” that they ritually displayed during interrogations. He spent eight months in Shebekino. (Photo by Stefan Schocher) After that: Saraysk Detention Center, south of Moscow. There was something like an initiation ceremony there – meaning: a beating orgy. After that, things were relatively quiet. And then on to Stary Oskol. And that’s when the medical problems began. In Stary Oskol, there was this “Major Sunshine” – the camp commandant. “Today we call him ‘Dr. Evil,’” says Kotov. They dragged an HIV-positive inmate from his cell and put him in a windowless room. “He passed away very quietly,” Kotov says. The man developed pneumonia and died after three days. Another inmate hanged himself with a bedsheet. And they told him there that he would simply suffocate because of his “pneumonia.” At some point it became clear: something was wrong. Whether it was pneumonia, tuberculosis, or something else. He overheard the doctors’ conversations and understood that it was cancer. But he was never told that. There was no treatment either. But at least from then on, he was largely left alone. Then came that day in June 2026: First, uniforms were handed out. They had to put them on. He could barely get dressed without help, he was already so weak. Then everyone had to line up: facing the wall, limbs spread, hands against the wall. “We all stood there like idiots,” he says. Then they put cloth bags over their heads, tied their hands, and led them away. They drove for about an hour – to an airfield, as it turned out. By then, he could hardly stand. Then came the flight. Finally, another bus ride. No one knew what was going on. One of the men said it was an exchange, Kotov recounts. He replied, “Never, don’t be a fool.” But it was true. It was a day like a dream. “And here I am now,” he says. He looks out at the small balcony outside his hospital room on the second floor, his arms propped up on the mattress. On the opposite balcony, a shirtless man with a round belly is tidying up. Outside, the birds are chirping and the sun is shining. During the night, Russian missiles struck Kyiv – again. The following night, they will do so again – once more. And in a few days, it will be Oleh Kotov’s 60th birthday. He says, “I’m not bitter.” But he has one great wish for himself and for humanity: “This evil must be defeated.” Svitlana Kotova stands before her husband, who is sitting on the bed, and strokes his thin hair. They haven’t seen each other for four years. Every month during that time, she wrote him a letter. Her husband received two of them; no one knows what happened to the others. The corners of his mouth tremble, his eyes well up with tears, he rests his head against her chest, she embraces him, presses him to her, strokes his cheek, and says, “We called them; they’ll be here soon.” She lifts the corners of her mouth into something like a smile. The son from Kharkiv will come to Kyiv for his father’s birthday. The younger son is in Western Europe; he won’t be able to make it. Seven days after this conversation, Oleh Kotov fell asleep and never woke up.