VLADIMIR Putin's secret prison in eastern Ukraine where victims are allegedly electrocuted and sexually abused in a torture chamber has been exposed.
Ruslan Zakharov, 31, says he was taken to the basement of the Izolyatsia prison in Donetsk, a Russian-controlled city, after being accused of being a spy in October 2019.
He told the Telegraph: “It shakes you all up so hard: half of your body goes numb.
“You think they’re going to kill you: you feel helpless. You think you’re alone and no one will come to your rescue.”
Izolyatsia – meaning 'isolation' in Russian – was a factory before it was transformed into a torture chamber in 2014.
Torture victims said inmates were left on hanging racks, waterboarded and forced to fight each other.
The men and women held at the prison have sued Russia and Ukraine at the European Court of Human Rights.
Mr Zakharov said the captors would smack him with a live wire as they "beat the truth out of him".
He added that he was duct-taped and electrocuted on a desk, and was forced to stand in his cell with his face against the wall and arms stretched over his head.
Mr Zakharov and his mum had to pay more than $12,000 before he was released at the end of October 2019.
At least 90 people have claimed they were tortured at Izolyatsia but Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office. said there are hundreds of undocumented victims.
A report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights said nine out of nearly 40 detainees released in the December 2019 said they were subjected to sexual violence.
SECRET PRISONS
Dank basements are used as secret prisons for those who are held captive by Russia-backed rebels and the mercenaries that fight alongside them.
It is claimed more than 200 people – including civilians – are being held in a number of barbaric facilities inside former nuclear bunkers in eastern Ukraine.
They are allegedly being run by Kremlin-backed Ukrainian separatist forces in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic.
Known as the War in Donbas, the conflict has raged since 2014 and left the former Soviet-state split in half – with 13,000 people dead and some 1.1million forced to flee.
One vile dungeon is said to be the playground of a vicious torturer known as "The Maniac", who uses a surgeon's kit to mutilate his victims.
The Maniac's identity was revealed by Justice for Peace in Donbas, an alliance of 17 Ukrainian human rights organisations, and local media.
The Centre for Civil Liberties (CCL), based in Kyiv, told The Sun there are presently 267 people, including 226 civilians, locked up in these dungeons without facing any charges.
RUSSIA AND UKRAINE AT WAR
RUSSIA and the Ukraine have remained technically at war since 2014.
The conflict was triggered by the Ukrainian Revolution – when an uprising overthrew the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych.
Vladimir Putin's forces annexed the region of Crimea from Ukraine in a move which was widely condemned by the West.
The conflict then spiralled when pro-Russian groups in Eastern Ukraine then took up arms against the state.
Russia gave their backing the separatist forces which formed breakaway republics in Donetsk and Luhansk.
Putin's forces then launched a military incursion into these regions as they gave their support to the rebels.
Almost seven years have now passed and the War in Donbas remains at a stalemate.
The US and Europe have accused Russia of blocking solutions to try to finally end the conflict.
“Russia must immediately cease its aggression in eastern Ukraine and end its occupation of Crimea,” said US diplomat Rodney Hunter.
"We call on Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine, cease its support for its proxies and other armed groups and implement all of the commitments it made under the Minsk agreements.”
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