"They didn't break me. I wouldn't have lived with myself if I had spoken then," Oleksandr, a torture survivor

Journalist Joan De Rijke is in the recently liberated areas of eastern Ukraine. There she met Oleksandr, a former Ukrainian army intelligence officer who was twice imprisoned by the Russians. He tells how he was beaten with bats and truncheons. He said: "I would not have been able to live with myself if I had spoken then."

Read more in De Morgen 's article translated for the Center for Public Investigations.

A man picks up a small sweater from the floor: "This is my granddaughter's." Oleksandr (52) - he prefers not to give his last name. He points to the ground covered with children's belongings: "They destroyed everything they could."

His house on the outskirts of the recently liberated village of Verbivka in eastern Kharkiv region is in complete chaos. The letter Z, one of the symbols of the Russian invasion, is painted on the door. Boxes of ammunition are piled in an outbuilding, next to a concrete-floored garage that served as a bedroom for Russian soldiers who lived here for six months. "They brought girls with them," says Oleksandr, "The garage was full of condoms.

The recruitment center was liberated by Ukrainian soldiers on September 6. Oleksandr is a former soldier who served in Donbas during the war in 2015 and 2016. First, in the Sarmat battalion, which serves as the commander of the 56th Brigade's intelligence service. In the living room - or what's left of it, as the Russians tore everything up along with the carpet - the former soldier takes out his old uniform and kisses it. "They didn't find it, I hid it well in the house."

Over the past six months, Oleksandr has been taken by Russians twice. "The first time they took my son. They threatened to kill him if he didn't tell them where I was. Then I got a call and had to come to their headquarters in Verbivska school. Otherwise, my son would not have survived. They wanted to find me, not him. He was just a decoy. Fortunately, they let him go."

Photo: Vincent Haigens / Civilians waiting in line to receive humanitarian aid. Somewhere between Verbivka and Balakliya

Oleksandr says that he was betrayed by two collaborators, residents who sided with the Russians. "I know who they are. They gave information to the Russians for certain privileges. When the Ukrainian military entered the village, they fled."

The Russians were looking for him because he is a veteran of the war in Donetsk region, Oleksandr says. "They arrested everyone who had or has ties to the Ukrainian army, but mostly they were after people like me who fought in Donbas. It was their way of taking revenge for their dead and for their way of life on the Russian side."

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On the first night of his arrest, Oleksandr was lying on his children's shoes on a concrete floor with no heating. "It was very cold, if I didn't have these shoes, I would have stabbed myself. They kept me alive for two nights. Then they asked me about my military activities in Donbas, my rank and position, and where I was. They were furious if they found out that you were a sniper at that time - they killed you immediately. I realized that they would not like the position of an intelligence officer either. So I made up a story that I served in the Chernihiv region, far from Donbas. And that I did nothing but drive soldiers back and forth because I was in poor health and I wasn't really ready to take part in combat. After two days, I was released on the condition that I check in with them every day in their logbook to make sure I didn't escape. At that time, the fighting was so fierce that hardly anyone could get out, let alone escape. We mostly went to the store and spent the rest of the time either at home or in the bomb shelter."

Photo: Vincent Haigens / Oleksandr shows empty ammunition boxes left by the Russians

On July 31, Oleksandr was arrested again. "At half past nine in the evening, a whole special brigade suddenly burst into the garden. They climbed over the fence and started shooting wherever they saw. My dog, like a defender, ran to the strangers, and if my wife hadn't stopped them, the dog would have been gone." He looks at his wife: "She wasn't afraid, she didn't back down in front of those men and said she would kill them with her own hands if even a single hair fell off my head. I was afraid that they would take her too, and fortunately, I managed to fix the situation so that they did not touch her. They blindfolded me, taped my mouth and put me in the car."

Knowing the road like the back of his hand, the former soldier realized by the number of turns that he had been taken to a former police station in the nearby town of Balakliya. The police station was used by the Russians as their headquarters.

"They pushed me into a small cell, no more than a few meters. There were already nine men there, two of them slept on bunk beds, the rest slept on the floor. There was a toilet in the corner," Oleksandr says.

He didn't stay there long, because the Russians immediately took him to an interrogation room. "I saw five masked men, one of whom was from the FSB (Russian intelligence service - ed.), who was conducting the interrogation himself. The others were holding police batons and baseball bats. On another table, I saw needles, which are usually used to stick under someone's nails. There was also a phone. The FSB man put clamps on my fingers that connected to a field phone on the table. The power cables of such a phone are used on a person's body, and I knew that this technique had already been used in Donetsk region. "If you are lying, I will increase the voltage," the FSB officer threatened. I was forced to put my hands down by my sides so that others could beat me with sticks on the inside of my thighs."

"The third man hit me on the back with a rifle butt. They also forced me to kneel down, then they stood on my calves with their army boots with denim spiked soles. And at the same time, they were asking me about the positions of the Ukrainian military and where they kept their weapons. I just made something up, deliberately gave wrong answers, I don't remember what I said. The pain was terrible, unbearable. But I remained conscious," Oleksandr continues.

Photo: Vincent Haigens / A hit Russian armored vehicle is stuck on the road between Kharkiv and Balakliya

This went on for a month. The man tells how he was taken out of his cell three times a day for torture. Each time for at least half an hour, but until a new FSB officer appeared. "He was older than the others and took me to the torture room with needles and a phone. He said he didn't like this practice. That he offered to talk normally. He asked me where I had worked before and what I was doing now. He was also interested in my family. I told him that I have four granddaughters, two of them are eight years old, one is five years old, and the youngest is two years old. When I said this, I got so excited and started crying on emotion. I suspect that the man was somehow touched by this, because he decided to let me go, but on the condition that I come to report in two weeks."

In an attempt to verify Oleksandr's testimony, we spoke to his cellmate. He confirmed all the statements. The practices described by Oleksandr are also the methods used most often in Russian interrogations. Local police also confirm that torture was used in Oleksandr's place of detention.

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Six days later, Oleksandr's village was liberated, as was Balakliya. The former soldier shows a photo of himself right after his release from torture. Dark bags under his eyes, tousled gray beard: "They couldn't break me. I wouldn't be able to live, I would be disgusted to look at myself in the mirror if I told them anything then."

He wants to call himself strong. "There were stronger people in the cell than me. A seventy-year-old man was there for 100 days. Another was there for two months. One of them was beaten so badly in the face that he was covered in blood, he was unrecognizable. I was very worried about them as soon as I was released, I was afraid that the Russians would soon kill them or throw a grenade into their cell as soon as they learned about the approach of the Ukrainian army. Fortunately, everyone managed to escape when the Russians fled. We all survived."

One person he will definitely never forget was a Chechen, a Kadyrovite, who fought for the Russians. "He was wearing a mask, but we could all tell from his accent where he was from. Every time he entered the cell, he would pick someone and beat them, one by one, from among the prisoners: "One, two, three, four, five". Then, when he lost consciousness, for example, number five, he would choose another one and take him for interrogation. One of us had heart problems, and I can still remember and hear the Chechen saying in his broken accent that he hoped the prisoner's heart would stop, like his Chechen comrades, because "the Ukrainian heart is worthless."

For a while, the ruined living room is silent. Iryna, Oleksandr's wife, is the first to break the silence: "I was so afraid that I would never see him alive again. Every day I went to the Russian local authorities to find out what happened to my husband. They did not tell me anything, but they allowed me to bring medicine and food to the police station. This kept my hopes alive."

Photo: Vincent Haigens / The basement of the police station used by the Russians as a torture chamber

It is a scar that will remain forever, says her husband. "But I am here, alive, which I cannot say about others who fled before the Ukrainian army arrived." He will not let them disappear, and he sounds confident. "Half of our village consists of collaborators, to a greater or lesser extent. Before the war, most people here were pro-Russian, but that changed quickly. However, some people continued to believe in the Russians. Almost everyone here has families on the other side of the border, we live close to each other. This does not make it easier. But I will find those two men who betrayed me. It's only a matter of time before I track them down. And yet I will not let hatred rule my life. When I find them, I will beat them up good. Then I will hand them over to the police. The question is what the Ukrainian authorities are going to do with them."

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In Kharkiv, we are talking to Volodymyr Tymoshko, the head of the regional police. According to the law, there are three categories of collaborators, he explains. "You have people who sympathize with the Russians and publicly call on us to surrender to them. They get a relatively lenient sentence. Then there are people who deliberately do things in favor of the Russians, who are punished more severely. The third group consists of people in public office who have sided with the Russians. Civil servants, mayors and other local administrators. They receive the harshest sentences, often imprisoned for years."

Photo: Vincent Haigens / Oleksandr's house in Verbivka. The letter Z, one of the symbols of the Russian invasion, is painted on the windows and doors.

According to the police chief, not many collaborators are active in the Kharkiv region. "Ninety-nine percent of the population is pro-Ukrainian. Moreover, you have to distinguish between collaborators who do it for financial reasons, such as the homeless, drug addicts or others living in deep poverty, and people who support Russia solely for the sake of ideology. We don't see the latter that often. So far, our police have arrested 50 collaborators. Two of them adhered to Russian ideas about the so-called fight against Ukrainian neo-Nazis, while the rest did it for money. But three agencies, including the SBU, are dealing with collaborators, and a special investigative agency is looking for traitors. I don't have any information about the number of arrests, but we still need more employees."