Russia's 'torture prisons' in Ukraine exposed | Global News Podcast — Transcript

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1. 0:00Welcome to the Global News podcast from
2. 0:02the BBC. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway and
3. 0:05today I'm joined by Tanya Henenko. And
4. 0:07Tanya, you have uncovered some terrible
5. 0:10stories of abuse of Ukrainian civilians
6. 0:14in secret jails in Russian occupied
7. 0:18Ukraine and over the border in Russia
8. 0:20itself. First of all, tell us about
9. 0:23these detention centers. Well, actually
10. 0:25for Ukrainians inside of Ukraine, it's
11. 0:27not a news even, you know, uh a lot of
12. 0:30civilians are kept in those detention
13. 0:32centers for years and years and uh their
14. 0:35relatives are trying to sometimes to
15. 0:37understand whether they are even alive
16. 0:39or not. What we did with this
17. 0:42investigation, we found survivors uh who
18. 0:45were in such detention centers and who
19. 0:48survived the tortures and uh sexual
20. 0:51violence in some of the cases. And we
21. 0:54also uh check the open sources to see
22. 0:57the statements of other survivors. And
23. 1:00we were able to establish that there are
24. 1:02approximately 93 such centers in
25. 1:04occupied territories of Ukraine and 102
26. 1:07in Russia where Ukrainian civilians uh
27. 1:10were held. Uh and we are talking about
28. 1:12time frame of research uh in from 2023
29. 1:17to 2025. So that is the data from those
30. 1:20years. And who are the people who are
31. 1:23being held in these centers and and how
32. 1:25did they end up there?
33. 1:26>> Well, there are so many different
34. 1:28stories how people uh end up in those
35. 1:31centers. So one of the characters uh
36. 1:33like leading character in our
37. 1:34documentary with Ma Hussein Nova um she
38. 1:37was engineer on a poultry farm in
39. 1:40Novasovsk in Donetsk obst which was
40. 1:44occupied and um several years after the
41. 1:48occupation in 2019 uh she was arrested.
42. 1:52She was working as a volunteer because a
43. 1:54lot of Ukrainians who are staying on
44. 1:56occupied territories they they were
45. 1:58trying to support Ukrainian armed forces
46. 2:01or she was also helping to uh orphanages
47. 2:04uh to kids who didn't have support after
48. 2:07the occupation. So she would send some
49. 2:09food or you know shoes and uh for that
50. 2:13help she received the flag from uh
51. 2:15Ukrainian soldiers and they left
52. 2:17signatures there. um she shared that
53. 2:20picture among trusted friends and
54. 2:22somehow it probably ended up in the
55. 2:24wrong hands. So she was arrested and
56. 2:27after that brought to um notorious
57. 2:30prison in Bonetsk which called Isilatia.
58. 2:33Um and you know that is her story. After
59. 2:36that she spent in detention for more
60. 2:38than 3 years. Uh there are other stories
61. 2:41of people who were in occupation in her
62. 2:44son and they ended up in her son
63. 2:46detention center. Um I mean in last
64. 2:51years since full-scale invasion I had
65. 2:53conversations with a lot of uh Ukrainian
66. 2:55civilians. Um one of them was mass
67. 2:58teacher. Uh she was uh abducted I mean
68. 3:01kidnapped basically uh from um I think
69. 3:05it was K region as far as I remember and
70. 3:07then she was brought to Russian prison
71. 3:09where uh she um you know she was
72. 3:13subjected to terrible uh tortures. Tell
73. 3:16us more about Lud Miller. She was
74. 3:18basically just bundled off the street,
75. 3:21taken to one of these centers. And what
76. 3:23happened to her there?
77. 3:25>> So when she was brought there, uh she uh
78. 3:29was um you know, searched uh there were
79. 3:33comments ma made, sexualized comments
80. 3:35about her body. Um Luna was eventually
81. 3:38brought to her cell and she wanted to
82. 3:41cry. Um but one of the inmates, female
83. 3:44invmate told her, uh don't you dare to
84. 3:47do that. They are watching us all the
85. 3:49time and whoever cries will be bitten.
86. 3:52So there are very strict rules in
87. 3:54Islatia where if somebody from guards
88. 3:57enters the cell, uh prisoners are
89. 4:00supposed to wear the backs on their
90. 4:02heads, uh they are not allowed to sit or
91. 4:06to lay in their bed. they have to stand
92. 4:09up the light uh for hours and hours and
93. 4:11hours. Obviously, the light doesn't go
94. 4:13off even during the night. And then uh
95. 4:17she describes that there in her in the
96. 4:20documentary and her interviews she says
97. 4:21that she has never heard such terrible
98. 4:24screaming as she heard there because um
99. 4:27and you know people who are survivors
100. 4:30from Iselia, there are other um
101. 4:33survivors we interviewed in uh
102. 4:35documentary. They're talking about uh
103. 4:38sexualized torture. So uh one of the
104. 4:40characters Rouslancher told us that uh
105. 4:43he was tortured for several months
106. 4:45including the electrocution of genitals.
107. 4:49Uh they are threatened that they can be
108. 4:52raped or their family can be brought in
109. 4:54uh in Iselia and can be raped as well.
110. 4:57In some of the cases they said that they
111. 5:00learn this new habit of listening who is
112. 5:03tortured in hope that those are not
113. 5:06their relatives. You know Miller she was
114. 5:10sexually assaulted in Isalia and later
115. 5:13she was transferred to another prison.
116. 5:15um she was still in prison during
117. 5:17full-scale invasion in 2022
118. 5:20and then later she returned in exchange
119. 5:23um in prisoner swap
120. 5:25>> and the UN has said that torture of
121. 5:28civilians at these places is systematic
122. 5:31and widespread. What more can you tell
123. 5:34us about that? Well, we uh we see that
124. 5:38um that started with the beginning of
125. 5:40the war in 2014 and I would say it was
126. 5:43brought to the conscious of the western
127. 5:46world or reported more widely after
128. 5:48full-scale invasion when we saw what was
129. 5:50happening in Heron and other regions.
130. 5:52But the the system works uh and it's um
131. 5:57you know the main rule of that system is
132. 5:59subjecting uh civilians especially
133. 6:01politically
134. 6:03political uh detainees uh to uh terrible
135. 6:06tortures in order to break them.
136. 6:09>> And who are the people who are carrying
137. 6:12out this torture?
138. 6:14as uh one of our characters again in
139. 6:16documentary Rouslan Shhater describes on
140. 6:19the example is
141. 6:21he says that isia uh wasn't created by
142. 6:24Putin it was created by regular people
143. 6:27and um there were Russian soldiers in
144. 6:30charge of Iselia as guards and also
145. 6:32Ukrainian collaborators.
146. 6:34So one of uh perpetrators we
147. 6:38investigated in documentary is Yermach
148. 6:41his Ukrainian collaborator. it's his
149. 6:43cold name and he was a person who um
150. 6:47tortured Lud Miller in the way when he
151. 6:49came and saw her first for the first
152. 6:51time. She she was uh she was informed
153. 6:54that he is coming inside of the cell. So
154. 6:56she wore the uh back on her head. So she
155. 6:59wasn't able to see him but she knew who
156. 7:00he is because there were a lot of you
157. 7:02know people were talking about him as
158. 7:04one of the um most violent uh uh people
159. 7:09there in Zelatia. So Yermach basically
160. 7:12he asked Ludm Miller uh whether she is
161. 7:15supporting Ukraine and she said that she
162. 7:18supports justice and that's was the
163. 7:20moment that was the moment when he uh
164. 7:22violently started beating her and later
165. 7:26when he thought that she's on hunger
166. 7:29strike because she lost some weight he
167. 7:31told her that for her they will cook
168. 7:33special food and then they brought raw
169. 7:35food mixed with garbage. uh she was
170. 7:38forced to eat it in front of CCTV
171. 7:40camera. So they were watching um her
172. 7:43doing that. Basically they watching all
173. 7:45inmates in Isolatia all of the time um
174. 7:49which doesn't give them any priv privacy
175. 7:51whatsoever. And so she um one of her
176. 7:55friends told her in in that cell that
177. 7:57she can hide you know that pretend that
178. 8:00she eats but split it out. She was
179. 8:03trying to do that but she says that the
180. 8:05taste of that food will stay with her
181. 8:07forever.
182. 8:08>> And how were you able to identify this
183. 8:11man?
184. 8:12>> Uh well actually in in case of uh
185. 8:15Yermach uh um uh Bellingat did their
186. 8:20research before and other uh survivor
187. 8:22from Isolatia uh Ukrainian journalist AF
188. 8:26uh was helping them with testimony about
189. 8:29Yermach's role in Isolatia as well. So
190. 8:32when we learned from Redm Miller that um
191. 8:35one of her cases when like this
192. 8:37situation which I described happened
193. 8:39with Yermach we uh checked information
194. 8:42about him checked uh that from his
195. 8:44social networks we were able to
196. 8:47establish where he approximately lives.
197. 8:49We cannot confirm whether he still works
198. 8:51in Islatia or not, but it looks like he
199. 8:54still lives in the area and some
200. 8:57pictures uh from his social networks
201. 8:59suggest that he was like having quite
202. 9:02good time in occupied Crimea on holidays
203. 9:04with his family. So uh what surprises a
204. 9:08lot of uh people but it's still probably
205. 9:11you know uh in a lot of stories about uh
206. 9:16people who commit crers is always uh
207. 9:18this like normal side of them. So it's
208. 9:22uh
209. 9:24quite interesting to see the testimonies
210. 9:26of survivors and then to check the
211. 9:30regular like happy family pictures and
212. 9:33to see that they also live this normal
213. 9:35life.
214. 9:36>> And what did the Russian authorities say
215. 9:38about these detention centers?
216. 9:40>> They didn't reply uh about the uh you
217. 9:43know allegations about the number of
218. 9:45civilians in detention centers. It
219. 9:48mostly was about the um documentation of
220. 9:52the crimes and that they are on the side
221. 9:54of the law and that they the responsible
222. 9:57authorities monitor the situation. But
223. 10:00uh earlier when UN was uh added Russia
224. 10:03to the blacklist of um countries
225. 10:06responsible for conducting or committing
226. 10:08sexual violence crimes during the
227. 10:10conflict. uh the Russian representative
228. 10:13in UN he accused um organization in
229. 10:18being biased and you know just like he
230. 10:20said that they are trying to portray
231. 10:22Russia as a willing villain so um that's
232. 10:26it yeah
233. 10:27>> Tanya thank you Tanya Harchenko reporter
234. 10:30who has uncovered those appalling
235. 10:33stories if you'd like to hear more from
236. 10:35the global news podcast click the link
237. 10:37below but thanks for watching