As the Ukrainian authorities continue their investigation of the recently liberated territory in the Kharkiv region, new details of how the Russians tortured Ukrainians are emerging. So, images of rooms where the Russians tortured Ukrainians, as well as horror stories, began to appear on social networks.

cells and torture chambers in KharkivPhoto: video shooting

According to police chief Ihor Klymenko, after the liberation of a part of the Kharkiv region, at least ten places were discovered that were used by Russian troops as “torture chambers”.

Kyiv Independent reports that when FSU officers were in then-occupied Kupyansk, they tortured residents and threatened to send them to minefields and kill their families.

Maksym Maksymov is one of those who survived Russian abuses. He pointed to the place where he was tortured with electric shocks, the Guardian reports. The Russian military took him from his cell in the basement of the police station in Izyum. He was put in an office chair, a clamp was attached to his finger and he was shocked.

“I fell. They lifted me to my feet. They put a hood on my head. I didn’t see anything. My legs are numb. I could no longer hear with my left ear,” he said. “Then they did it again. I passed out. They brought me to my cell after 40 minutes.”

In the hospital in Izyum, 67-year-old Mykhailo Tsindei recently started walking again. His arm in plaster is a painful reminder of the presence of Russians in the city, reports AFP. “On the night of August 27, a school near my house was bombed,” he told AFP.

“There were Russian soldiers there, there were many dead and wounded,” he said. After that explosion, the Russians arrested Mr. Sindei, accusing him of “giving Ukrainian forces the coordinates of the school where the Russians were hiding.” They wanted to know where the Ukrainian troops were and whether he communicated with them.

“They put a bag on my head and took me away (…) when I saw it, I recognized this place, it was the Izyum police station,” he says.

In this three-story building, also damaged by the bombing, Sindei says he was held for 12 days before Ukrainian troops arrived, in a 5-by-5-meter cell.

That cell in the dank basement held up to eight people, he says. He found a piece of jacket hanging on the wall, which he used as a bandage.

“On the second day, my arm was broken. One person held my hand, and another hit me with a metal rod. They beat me for two hours almost every day. I lost consciousness several times,” he said.

“They beat me on my heels, back, legs and kidneys,” he adds. “I heard people screaming 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” the man said. According to him, the prisoner was “screaming very loudly” not far from his cell. According to him, at least one man died in this basement.