The Russians castrated the prisoners. "I've never heard anything so terrible"

Ukrainian prisoners of war are going through hell, reports The Times on Sunday. As proof, the daily published statements by psychologist Angelika Jacenko, to whom two young soldiers were sent after returning from Russian captivity. The men revealed that the Russians castrated them with a knife so they “could not have children anymore”.

Stories revealed by her patients, Ukrainian psychologist Angelika Yatsenko told journalists of “The Times”. The woman did not hide that she cried when she heard about the horror that Ukrainian prisoners of war went through in Russian captivity.

For the first time I did not behave like a professional psychologist – she admitted in an interview with journalists.

All because of the dramatic confessions of men who have recently returned from Russian captivity and, unable to cope with what they experienced, went to a psychologist for therapy. The confessions of a 25-year-old who was detained by the Russians for a month and his friend, three years older than him, who spent three months in the camp, are chilling.

The men agree that in the POW camp they were regularly beaten and humiliated, until the day when drunken Russians castrated them with a knife. As they say, there was “so much blood” that they do not know how they managed to survive.

While committing these macabre acts, the torturers were to claim that they were doing it so that men could not father children. 

“I've never heard anything so terrible. I told them I needed a bathroom and went and cried and cried. I didn't want them to see, because they might think there was no hope,” said the psychologist, who works with war victims on a daily basis and admits that “it's hard to surprise her” in an interview with The Times.

The woman added that one of the men had already returned to the army. Both tortured cannot cope with the trauma and still have suicidal thoughts.

Russian officer: Yes, we tortured Ukrainians. I will not forgive myself

Konstantin Yefremov, a former lieutenant in the Russian army who defected to the West almost a year ago and is considered a traitor and deserter by Moscow, admits in an interview with the BBC that the Russian army tortured Ukrainians in Ukraine.

In a unit in southern Ukraine, the Russians tortured Ukrainian prisoners for about a week, day and night. “The colonel put a gun to the prisoner's forehead and said, 'I'll count to three, and then I'll shoot you in the head,'” a former Russian army officer told the BBC. He himself did not return to Ukraine and fled from Russia. Now he is considered a traitor and a deserter.

They threatened rape, knocked out their teeth

At the beginning of the invasion, the Russian was stationed with his unit in Melitpol. Soldiers and officers there literally threw themselves at everything that fell into their hands. “Buckets, axes, bicycles, they stuffed it all into their trucks,” he told the BBC. One of the soldiers grabbed a lawn mower and proudly announced that he would take it home and finally mow the grass. They raided abandoned houses and ransacked refrigerators, some even caught ornamental carp floating in garden ponds and ate them. However, this was not the worst thing, but the torture that Yefremov's Russian colleagues served to the prisoners.