Ukrainian police have confirmed that one possession had been tortured to death in a torture chamber Russian occupiers had established in the basement of the police station of Balakliia, a city of 27,000 in northeastern Ukraine liberated in 8 September.
“During the inspection of the building, we found wires leading to hidden video cameras in the rooms where hostages were held. People, including women, slept on the floor and were tortured with electric shocks during interrogations,” the police reported.
The body of the man who was reported to have died from torture will be exhumed.
Russian military and special services detained and tortured local residents in this chamber, where 8 to 15 people were held in each room and secretly monitored.
Kharkiv police chief Serhii Bolvinov earlier explained that during the occupation of Balakliia, the Russians
always held at least 40 people captive, feeding them twice a day with bare porridge. They searched through local collaborators for those who served, had relatives in the Ukrainian Army, or helped the Army in some way or the other. One man was in the “prison” for 46 days — the Russians found a photo of his brother in a Ukrainian military uniform.
According to witnesses, they were tortured in different ways. “I will not describe all the tortures, I will only say that the ‘lightest’ one was when they were electrocuted,” Bolvinov wrote.
Military of the Russian puppet “Luhansk People’s Republic” and Chechnya, as well as representatives of the riot police of Togliatti and the FSB of the Russian Federation were stationed here.
Fleeing from the Ukrainian city, the occupiers left the prisoners in the closed rooms. However, one of the hostages managed to break a window and get out to open all the doors and free the others. Therefore, the exact number of detainees and victims is still being clarified, the Kharkiv police said.
