Ukrainian soldier who survived being tortured and 'buried alive' details how he escaped
A Ukrainian soldier who defied the odds and survived being tortured by Russian troops has revealed how he managed to escape.
There have long been reports that Russian soldiers are torturing Ukrainians. The Human Rights Council heard back in March that innocent Ukrainians are being allegedly raped, tortured and executed and their surviving family members are being left without answers on the whereabouts of their loved ones.
Vrinda Grover, a lawyer and panel member, detailed one woman's harrowing experience.
"A civilian woman who had been raped during confinement in a detention facility held by Russian authorities stated that she pleaded with the perpetrators, telling them she could be their mother's age, but they dismissed her saying, 'B*tch, don't even compare yourself to my mother. You are not even a human. You do not deserve to live'," she shared.
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But it's not just civilians that are allegedly being tortured, but Ukrainian soldiers too - one being 33-year-old National Guardsman Vladislav.
Vladislav allegedly had his throat slashed by Russian soldiers and he was thrown into a pit alongside seven other comrades who had died.
The men who were captured before Vladislav were said to be from intelligence and 'had their eyes gouged out, their lips cut off, their male organs cut off, their ears, [and] their noses'.
Vladislav and the fallen soldiers allegedly had garbage thrown over them in a bid to conceal the bodies, and it's this that helped Vladislav escape death.
Vladislav is unable to speak as a result of the injuries he's sustained but has written down his experiences, which his wife Victoria shared with Ukrainian news outlet Suspilne.
"He says he was lucky that when they threw them into the pit, they poured more garbage on top so it wouldn't be so visible," she said.
"There was a broken bottle there, and his hands were tied, so he was able to cut the rope with that bottle."
Vladislav then crawled for five days to a safe place and when he was found, he was rushed to a medical facility in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
He was in a serious condition upon his arrival, with his doctor stating that Vladislav's skin was starting to rot from the excessive bleeding coming from his neck wound.
"When they cut your throat, when a person is bleeding out, there are few chances," his doctor said. "He held on to the end, but, you know, what makes it different is that he was sure to the end that everything would be fine."
Topics: Ukraine, Russia, News, World News
Niamh Shackleton