‘If You Don't Tell Me Everything, I'll Rape Your Sister-in-Arms’: Marine on Brutal Torture of Women in Russian Prisons

Marine Inha Chekinda was serving with the 1st Marine Battalion when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. Inha’s command ordered her to return to the rear, but she instead joined the battles for Mariupol. During the defense of the city, she was captured along with other defenders and held captive for about six months.

Slidstvo.Info journalists talked to Inha, who for the first time shared her experience of imprisonment and what is done to Ukrainian women in Russian prisons.

DEFENSE OF MARIUPOL

Inha and her fellow soldiers got to Mariupol on February 28, 2022. They held the city’s defense for about two and a half months. At first, there was no heavy shelling. But later, the Russians began to destroy the city’s infrastructure: there was no water or electricity. The marine and her brothers and sisters-in-arms were in a bunker at the Illich Iron & Steel Works.

Inha Chekinda / Photo from the personal archive of the marine

Many people say it’s Azovstal. But Azovstal, Azovmash, and the Illich plant are three different plants. One location, but different enterprises.

One day an order was received from the battalion commander. We were given a choice: stay in the bunker, surrender, or go out in small guerrilla groups. Since my guys hadn’t come back from their positions yet, I was left alone. At that time, women (about 110 – ed.) were gathered and taken away in some cars, while men in others.

At first, we tried to break through. But the car I was riding in with the guys stopped for some reason and we had to go back to the bunker. Maybe it was for the best because a lot of people died then.

One day, the brigade commander gathered all the women, including not only marine infantry but also Mariupol medics, the National Guard, and others.

The orcs (Russians – ed.) even took medics prisoner, although this is not allowed. They put us on a KrAZ (truck- ed.) and drove us away. We arrived at the place of deployment, where one of our battalion commanders was already waiting for us with a white flag. It was dark and the orcs made a corridor out of flashlights. Then we were thoroughly searched.

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“REMEMBER ME FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. MY CALL SIGN IS DEATH”

Over half a year, Inha was held in four different places: Olenivka (Donetsk Oblast), SIZO No. 2 remand prison in Taganrog (Russia), a women’s colony in Valuyki (Belgorod Oblast, Russia), and Malaya Loknya (Kursk Oblast, Russia).

The first was Olenivka. We were held there for a short time – about seven days. On April 19 (2022 – ed.), we were brought to Taganrog Remand Prison No. 2, where the real hell began.

Photo from the press service of the Main Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service for Rostov Oblast

For the first two days, we were not bothered. The Russians took us out twice for checks, in the morning and in the evening. There, the “vertukhai” (prison guards – ed.) could still abuse us. They would beat our legs to spread them very wide, and you have no right to close them. You stand there and you feel as if your spine is going to snap in two.

This was their way of showing their superiority over us. Then, one day a lieutenant (Russian serviceman – ed.) arrived. He didn’t hide his face, and we realized later that he was brought there to extract information from us.

When the lieutenant first came into the cell, he took me by the hair, took me out of the cell, put me against the wall, and said: “Feet shoulder-width apart,” and twisted my arms. He said: “What are you, a die-hard?” and hit my ears with both hands. My head started to spin. Then I realized that I would get a hard time.

Inha was in a cell with her sister-in-arms, a communications specialist from the same battalion. It so happened that they were put in the same cell together, which was located opposite the office where the Russians conducted interrogations.

This lieutenant did not have to drag me far. He took me out of the cell and straight to that office.

I will never forget his face and his eyes. These are the eyes of a man devoid of life. He looks at you like a living person, but there is no life in his eyes, they are transparent.

He said to me: “Remember me for the rest of your life. My call sign is ‘death’.” And he showed me his hands – he had no phalanges on his hands. They were broken off, just one solid piece of bone. So I did remember him.

This man wanted to get information, to find out where our weapons were. He asked about chemical weapons. He also asked about the Javelin (an American man-portable anti-tank missile system – ed.). I told them what weapons we personally had, specifically in the company where I served. I did so because if someone else had said it and the Russians found out I lied, I would have been in trouble.

On the first day I arrived in Taganrog, I was put up against a wall. For some reason, I thought I was going to be shot right there.

“IF YOU DON’T TELL ME EVERYTHING, I WILL RAPE YOUR SISTER-IN-ARMS”

In prison, the Russians interrogated Inha about her place of birth. She says that they did not like the fact that she was born in Lithuania.

“They said to me: “Why the f*ck are you serving here? Why aren’t you in your homeland?” I said: “Because Ukraine is my country. Lithuania is my homeland, but I will stand for Ukraine.”

After that, they threw me into a room where I saw a furnace. It was a very large furnace, where it seemed that you could put a coffin in and it would burn there.

The lieutenant did not care whether you were a man or a woman. He beat me with all his might. He beat me for three days, and I got a huge bruise on my leg. Because when he put me against the wall, he would kick me with his right foot and hit my left leg.

One day he said: “If you don’t tell me information, I will rape your sister-in-arms”. They brought my sister-in-arms. He hit her in the solar plexus and she fell to her knees in great pain. Then he asks: “Can you blow?”. And she’s a young girl, 25 years old; she hasn’t experienced much of life yet. She said: “I can’t,” and started crying. She was crying because she was offended. We stood for Ukraine, and now we are being abused like this. I could only imagine what he could do next.

He asked again: “Can you blow?” She started crying again and said: “No”. I said: “Let me do it”. He had a wooden hammer with a handle about 30 centimeters long. He told me to take this hammer, put a condom on it, and suck it. I did what he told this girl to do, just so he wouldn’t touch her. I was doing it and crying. And he said: “Why are you crying, I’m going to knock your teeth out.” That’s how unhinged he was.

There was also a moment when he put me in front of a wall and started beating me with a rubber truncheon. I was screaming in pain, but he wouldn’t stop. And then he told me that if I kept quiet, he would put me on the floor, spread my legs, and “f*ck me until I lost my pulse.”

So I realized that he could do it. But I could do nothing, absolutely nothing. I was so overwhelmed with fear – because even though you are alive – you are completely helpless. But he didn’t go through with it, just beat me a bit more and stopped.

Marine Inha Chekinda

“THE FURNACE WAS ON AND BURNING… IT WAS AN INHUMAN SCREAM”

The next day my sister-in-arms was taken away. I thought I would never see her again. Then I heard a scream and realized that she was crying. Not just crying, but screaming. It was an inhuman scream. I cannot even convey how scary it was. I can still hear that scream in my head.

When my sister-in-law was returned to the cell, she said that she was taken to a room with a furnace. The same room where a human can be shoved whole and burned. The furnace was on and burning.

At first, this lieutenant hit her 40 times, and then, together with a Kadyrovite, they started to shove her into this furnace. One took her by one leg and the other by the other. And they began to push her into this furnace. Then I remembered the scream I heard.

I asked, “How did they manage to shove you in completely?” She replied that she doesn’t even remember that moment because she blacked out. She only felt the fire touching her face.

They didn’t shove her in completely; they wanted to break her.

The last day I saw this lieutenant, he took me by the hair to the interrogation room. He put a chair down and started smoking, putting out cigarettes on my arm. It wasn’t very painful, but it was unpleasant.

Then he told me to put my hand on the table and started swinging that hammer. I thought he was going to hit me and I would lose my hand.

A Kadyrovite was sitting next to me and said: “Don’t touch this woman anymore”. I was in shock. The lieutenant swung the hammer again, and the Kadyrovite stopped him again: “I told you not to touch her anymore”.

Then the lieutenant said: “In the name of the Russian Federation, I grant you life”. I said: “Thank you,” and I was taken out of that office. When I was brought to the cell, they told me to sing the song “Happy Birthday to You”. I started singing this song. Before that, I had begged them to shoot me because I couldn’t bear the abuse anymore.

Inha in detention / Photo provided by the marine

“WE COLLECTED CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE TO AVOID STARVING TO DEATH”

Water on a flat plate with a little bit of porridge at the bottom was the food the Russians fed Inha and her sister-in-arms. They were given two slices of bread a day.

We would break one piece of bread and divide it: one for breakfast, the other for lunch, and half of the second was dinner. If there was still half of the first piece left, we ate at 10 o’clock and washed it down with water so that we wouldn’t die of hunger.

My sister-in-arms and I would share as well. Whenever hunger got the best of me, my sister-in-arms would give me her piece. And whenever she wanted it more, I would give her mine. In the cell, there was an iron table, and if there were crumbs left on it, we would collect them. I never for once thought that in the 21st century, people would have to collect crumbs from a table just to avoid starving to death.

Photo from the press service of the Main Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service for Rostov Oblast

They also had sauerkraut, which you eat and it feels like your stomach and intestines are being eaten away. If someone had high stomach acid, they couldn’t possibly eat it. Sometimes it was given every day, and girls who could not eat this sauerkraut would be hungry for two days. But I ate it because I didn’t want to starve to death.

There were three shifts on duty. The first shift was cleaning; we had to clean the cell. The guard from the second shift did not allow us to get up from our seats, and the third shift was the lightest – we could go to the toilet without permission and talk.

They didn’t enter the cell, they just opened the “hatch” (an opening in the cell door – ed.) and Kadyrovites’ muzzles would pop in. They always had the same question: “Russia or Ukraine?”. I said that I refrained from answering. Because I realized that if I said “Ukraine,” they would just bury me right here. And if I say “Russia”… Russia, really? I told my sister-in-arms the same thing: “Refrain”. We could not betray Ukraine. There were also moments when all the cells had to shout together “Putin is the king, or something like that. And “Zelenskyy…” – well, you get it. We were saying it, we were shouting, because we knew that if we didn’t do it, we would be buried right here.

But I will say this: no matter how many times we sang the Russian anthem that they forced us to sing, we never learned it. When they turned on the anthem, we had to stand against the wall and sing. But we are not fools to learn that anthem. They could go to hell. We had this anthem hanging on the wall in front of us and we just read it.

Russians loved their songs about May 9 and other similar songs. They would give us a printout and tell us to learn it. Today, for example, we will sing “Smuglyanka”. And the cells took turns singing these songs. Sometimes they would come up and say: “Now only this cell is singing.” And if you didn’t learn it, then, of course, there was a punishment for that. So we learned these songs and sang them. It was a kind of a joke of theirs. And we really, really hoped that on May 9 we would be exchanged.

A week or two before the transfer, we were transferred to another cell, a bright one. It looked like a children’s room and had a TV. We didn’t understand why we were given such conditions until we realized that the Russians were going to show us propaganda. Every day, we watched Russia-24 and their news.

Photo from the press service of the Main Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service for Rostov Oblast

After Taganrog, we were taken to Valuyki (Belgorod Oblast). There was a women’s penal colony there. The last place of detention was Malaya Loknya, Kursk Oblast.

We were just woken up at night, told to get dressed, and taken away. Again, airplanes. We were often transported by military planes.

When we were in Valuyki, I had a dream. Maybe you remember, there used to be a magazine called Burda Moden. And I see that magazine, and it clearly says “2025”. I thought at the time: “Oh my God, the war will last for three more years? Do we have to stay here for that long?” And today it is already 2025, and I think that maybe I had that dream for a reason. Maybe something will happen to Ukraine this year.

On October 17, 2022, Ukraine and Russia conducted another exchange of prisoners of war, and Ukraine was able to return 108 women, including Marine Inha Chekinda. After her release from captivity, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded the defender the Order for Courage, III grade.

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