A woman from Kherson, Ukraine, spoke to lawmakers in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday in shocking detail about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Russian forces. Lyubov, 57, whose last name has not been released, worked as an accountant in Russian-controlled territory for more than a year.

“In January they came for me,” he told the House Foreign Affairs Committee through an interpreter. Lyubov said that Russian soldiers broke into her house, claiming they were looking for weapons. “We found a map of Ukraine, the flag of Ukraine, souvenir magnets and a symbol with a blue and yellow ribbon symbolizing the victims of World War II,” he added. “That was their evidence against me,” he said.

They took her to a “torture chamber” and kept her there for five days, where they beat her, forced her to undress, and threatened her with rape. “They took me to the field and beat me again. They put a gun to my head and pretended to shoot,” he said. “They also made me dig my own grave.”

Lyubov said the soldiers let her go, “but said they would return.” When she returned to her house, it was looted and the medals that belonged to her father were confiscated.

The Mobile Justice Team, which is funded by the UK, the EU and the US, has been working with Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors across Ukraine and Kherson since the region was recaptured from Russian forces in November after eight and now months of ownership.

The Kremlin press service did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.

Reuters reported on the extent of the dungeons in Kherson in January, when Ukrainian authorities announced that about 200 people had allegedly been tortured in 10 locations. The survivors told Reuters that they were tortured in various ways, including electric shocks and suffocation.

Moscow, which has said it is conducting a “special military operation” in Ukraine, has denied committing war crimes or targeting civilians.

Established in May 2022 by the humanitarian law firm Global Rights Compliance with the support of international experts, the Mobile Justice Team is supporting Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office as it reviews more than 71,000 war crimes reports across the country since the February 24, 2022 invasion. .

Source: CNN, Reuters.