During the Kherson occupation, the Russian military set up a torture chamber in the police detention centre, where people were tormented for hours. Slidstvo.Info journalists identified these occupiers and talked to a man who survived the abuse.

A new investigation by Slidstvo.Info is about this. The video has English subtitles.

BEATEN AND THREATENED WITH RAPE

On 11 May, Ukrainian law enforcement officers served a notice of suspicion of ill-treatment of prisoners to the organiser of the Kherson torture chamber and his associates.

The person in question is the deputy head of the Rosgvardia in Rostov Region, Aleksandr Naumenko, with the call sign ‘Alpha’. This is his second suspicion of ill-treatment of prisoners. Three of his accomplices, Russian soldiers Aleksandr Chilengirov, Anver Muksimov and Aleksandr Bocharov, were also served with suspicion notices.

According to official information, from March to October 2022, the Russian military seized a detention centre in Kherson and tortured more than 200 local residents. Some were held for several hours, while others were held for months.

A resident of Kherson, Danylo (the man does not show his face for the safety of his relatives), was abducted by the occupiers and held in a torture chamber together with his younger brother. From 27 June to 8 July, they were brutally abused.

The man told journalists that the occupiers took him to the torture chamber because they thought that Danylo was a member of the territorial defence forces: “They told me that someone pointed fingers at me, said I was in the territorial  defence… They said: “we know you have a brother, let’s go to your house, where your brother is, where your parents are”.

They took all the brothers’ personal belongings and searched their phones. They were beaten, mocked and threatened with having their legs shot off.

“They beat me mostly on the legs, knees and back. Well, basically, then they took a gun, and I heard the bolt being cocked. They put it to my knee and said: “I’m counting to 10, tell me everything, or you’ll lose your knee”. Well, what could I tell them? If I had known, I probably would have told them,” Danylo recalls.

In the evening, the men were tortured by drunken Russian soldiers. According to Danylo, they were abused by young occupiers (20-23 years old) from Krasnodar, the Ural Mountains and other cities of the Russian Federation. The victims were stripped, electrocuted for hours, and cigarettes were put out on them. The torture was not only physical but also psychological.

“They showed us a guy and said he was gay. They said: “Now he will have fun with you here if you don’t cooperate”. They brought contraception and everything you need for sexual intercourse. Thank God, nothing happened,” the man says.

“I HAVE NEVER HEARD A PERSON SCREAM LIKE THAT”

In addition to beatings and torture, people were deprived of food and water and denied medical care.

“The first day they didn’t feed us at all, the second day they started giving us food, but… We ate buckwheat once a day – either with canned food with mould or dry bread with mould. In the evening, Russian army biscuits. And tea without sugar, without anything,” Danylo recalls.

The man told about the members of the territorial defence unit who were forced by the occupiers to eat their armbands.

“Perhaps one of the hardest things is to hear someone being tortured in the corridor. If I understood correctly, it was the guys from the territorial defence… As I understood it, they were forced to eat these armbands with the inscription ‘TRO (transl. – abbreviation for “territorial defence” in Ukrainian)’. Then someone got sick because people are not used to eating cloth,” says Danylo.

The man witnessed brutal torture of people: “I’ll tell you honestly, I’ve never heard a person scream like that in real life. I don’t know what they were doing to him, but when I heard that scream, I probably didn’t think any horror film was scary anymore… Even animals don’t scream like that.”

The Russian military played the Russian national anthem at full volume in the middle of the night and forced Ukrainians to get up. They also organised alcoholic parties, after which they came to the cells and abused their prisoners for fun.

“At that time, I did not realise that those people had real problems with their heads, that there was so much aggression, hatred… they might even enjoy it… I don’t know how you can mock a living person like that,” Danylo recalls.

They “beat” confessions out of Kherson residents of things they did not do and tried to force them to cooperate with the occupation “authorities”. Those who were unlucky enough to escape were tortured to death, while others were taken to the temporarily occupied territories.

WHO THE EXECUTIONERS ARE

Slidstvo.Info journalists have identified the Russian occupiers who abused Ukrainians in Kherson.

The main suspect is Aleksandr Naumenko. It was he who ordered the torture of prisoners of war.

Aleksandr Naumenko was born in Donetsk and received a Russian passport in 2003. He chose the path of a Russian soldier – for many years he served in the Russian army, even heading the main department of the Russian Interior Ministry in the Rostov oblast.

According to Ukrainian law enforcement officials, since March 2022, Naumenko has been in charge of the Russian Guard in the Kherson region. It was on the orders of Aleksandr and other unidentified leaders that the occupiers seized the premises of the police detention centre in Kherson. There, they set up a place for torturing Ukrainians.

This is Naumenko’s second suspicion. The Russian soldier managed to escape during the de-occupation of Kherson.

In addition to Aleksandr Naumenko, Ukrainian law enforcement officers served notice of suspicion to three of his associates – Anver Muksimov, Aleksandr Chilengirov, and Aleksandr Bocharov. The latter two managed to close their social media pages, but journalists managed to find some information.

Anver Muksimov is 34 years old. He was born in the Turkmen district of the Stavropol Territory of the Russian Federation. He currently lives in Stavropol.

 

On his VKontakte page, Muksimov posted photos with Russian military personnel from the motorised rifle brigade and airborne troops dating back to 2016.

The occupier is currently serving in a special radio communications unit of the Third Separate Special Forces Guards Brigade of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate.

Anver Muksimov, together with Chilengirov and Bocharov, escorted civilians from the detention centre to the premises where they were tortured, and took part in this himself.

He beat one of the illegally detained residents with a stun gun and electrocuted the victim for over two hours.

28-year-old Aleksandr Bocharov is from the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation. He serves in the OMON unit of the Russian National Guard.

Aleksandr Bocharov closed his page on social media, but journalists of Slidstvo.Info found his photos. The man loves physical activity and weapons – everything a riot police officer needs.

According to the investigation, Bocharov, on the orders of Naumenko and other leaders, beat one of the abducted civilians held in the detention centre with a rubber stick. After that, he tortured him by driving needles under his fingernails and into his back.

The youngest of the torturers was 20-year-old Aleksandr Chilengirov, a native of the Orenburg region of Russia, a rifleman with the 143rd Regiment of the 50th Separate Operational Brigade of the Russian National Guard.

The law enforcement suspicion states that Chilengirov pulled a hat over the eyes of civilians and took them to the premises where they were tortured.

According to Danylo and his brother, it was Chilengirov who participated in the torture.

Currently, according to social media, all 4 suspects continue to fight against Ukraine. They face up to 12 years in prison for their crimes (Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

In addition to the three official suspects, Danylo recognised two more of his torturers – Andrey Lisov and Yegor Bondarenko. The latter put out cigarettes on the brothers’ skin, beat and intimidated them.

 

Slidstvo.Info journalists have found many more Russian military personnel allegedly involved in the torture of people in Kherson. However, their names have not yet been identified.

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war in Ukraine, russian agresion