Zarina Zabrisky talks to survivors in the newly liberated Kharkiv region and discovers a terrifying logic of ‘psyops’ in Russian atrocities

EDITORIAL WARNING: Some readers may find the content of this article distressing.

The mass graves were discovered by chance, Kharkiv’s regional chief of police, Volodymyr Tymoshko, explained to Byline Times. On returning to the liberated town of Izium, police officers visited households and interviewed residents to record any crimes committed by Russian occupying forces, including looting and acts of torture and murder.

During these surveys, police located the sites where the Russians had secretly buried Ukrainian citizens. 

By 23 September, law enforcement officers had completed the exhumation of 447 bodies, including 425 civilians, five children, and 22 servicemen from the mass grave in Izium. Many bodies showed signs of violent death and torture: bodies with hands tied up, ropes around the necks, evidence of castration and other kinds of mutilation, and bullets lodged in the back of skulls.

“What is Izium? It is Auschwitz, 1945,” Tymoshko told Byline Times. “Maybe on a smaller scale, fortunately, as the Russians were there for six months only…”

“I don’t know what to call it, Tymoshko continued. “The occupying forces simply have a lust for violence and a thirst to see the suffering of other people. We very often recorded such cases. They did not even ask for any military information. They killed just for the sake of killing. They just tortured for the sake of torturing.” 

While not ruling out senseless sadism as the main motive for Russian Federation military personnel, further investigations by Byline Times suggest there may be another logic behind these atrocities. 

---

Method in the Madness

Oleksandr, 49, lived under the Russian occupation for six months. He and his colleagues were detained by the Russian military in Lyptsi, a town in the Kharkiv region,  on suspicion of being Ukrainian army informers. Prisoners were kept in dark, crowded basements without heating, beds, toilet, or washing facilities, and on some days, without food or water. 

Oleksandr explained to Byline Times how he was tortured by two Russian soldiers. A young soldier “with an indifferent face” hooked the electrodes to his hands and an officer who was “almost polite” interrogated him. Though he lost 25 kg and developed chest pains, Oleksandr considered himself lucky, as he had spent “only nine days in the basement” unlike his two colleagues, who were held there for months. He “was tortured only twice”, unlike former Ukrainian servicemen treated with special cruelty.

In the recently liberated village of Kozacha Lopan, only 5 km from the Russian border Liudmila, 46, spoke to Byline Times accompanied by the sounds of round-the-clock Russian artillery fire nearby. 

Liudmila’s husband Evhen, a former military officer, and her oldest son, Mykola, were detained by the Russian troops during the occupation. Mykola survived torture and returned home but Evhen has been missing for months. Their neighbour, Marina, another victim, saw Evhen in the basement where they were kept without food and heat. His face was so swollen that he couldn’t see, talk or drink water. 

Vitaly, another former soldier, was also detained in Kozacha Lopan and transported with a bag on his head, his hands tied, between three different locations. The torture ranged from psychological (“put on trousers with your hands still tied up behind your back or we will shoot you”) to physical, resulting in two broken ribs, wounds on his thighs, chest pains, and panic attacks. 

Though the town was still being shelled by Russian forces, Vitaly showed  Byline Times an improvised torture chamber. In the basement of a vegetable warehouse, inside a cage, there soiled blankets were crumpled on the concrete floor. Empty wine and beer bottles glinted in the dim light outside the cage. A plastic female mannequin, with a wine bottle inserted its genitalia, lay in the corner.