Thank you, good afternoon.
In the process of life in Russian captivity, all of us who were there or are there now undergo a procedure twice a day. It is called a “check.” At a certain time, everyone lines up in their cells in complete silence, as required by the guards, waiting to be taken out of the cells to be counted and tortured. This is a planned procedure, but the hardest part is not when you’re already standing in the corridor and being beaten. The hardest part is the one and a half to two hours of waiting, listening to your comrades being beaten. When you’re standing there and hearing their muffled screams, hearing the command for people to do push-ups 200 times after months of torture, and when they no longer have the strength, they are beaten with an electric shocker. This is called “recharging.”
It’s a constant practice. And you’re standing there, listening, and of course, your heart is pounding. But this is just one and a half to two hours of separate torture, and it’s a very strict requirement: you are forbidden to show that you’re in pain. For every scream, for every groan you make, they beat you more. They ask if it hurts, and if someone doesn’t understand (like a newcomer), they are beaten again in the same place, often with an electric shocker or a police baton. They also love to use plastic pipes—this is their discovery because they leave fewer traces, yet the pain is just as severe as from a stick.
What’s happening now is a voice of pain that many of our prisoners of war—men, women, and civilians—are experiencing, and this pain must be heard. Because, for example, when I went two months after my exchange from captivity to a conference on Prevention of Torture and Geneva Conventions held by the OSCE, the people who spoke to me in the corridors refused to believe that this was standard practice. They acknowledged that they saw me, and at the time, I was still very weak and hadn’t even had time to recover. Later, I had surgery, and they saw that I was limping. They understood that I was telling the truth, but they couldn’t believe that this was some systemic practice. They thought Russia, the country of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, couldn’t commit such terrible acts. But it can, and it does, every single day.
My comrades from my cell, with whom I was, not all have been exchanged yet. The last time I communicated with one of our civilians who was exchanged, he was a firefighter. He was captured during the evacuation of civilians from Bucha on March 16, 2022, and exchanged in August 2024. When we talked about what happened to him, he told me, “Max, thank God you didn’t go to the place where they took me,” because they tied him to a “Tapik” (a device connected to low-voltage electrical current) and spun him around for an hour.
So, I can’t say that I’m happy that this report is being made. Well, happiness isn’t the right word. It can’t be used that way. But I believe it’s very important. I think it’s crucial that these things be systematized, that society in different countries sees them, that people in fine suits—excuse me, I’m talking about today—people in suits in fancy villas who now want us to be silent, not to call the aggressor an aggressor, but a cat, know that we won’t remain silent. Because this can’t be hidden or concealed.
In any case, such reports need to be made, research needs to be conducted. I’m sure there is so much more—well, I understand that it’s impossible to cover everything and interview everyone because it’s an immense task. But I’m certain that what I’m sharing, every single person could have shared. I speak with my comrades and their friends in hospitals because every time I visit my friends in hospitals, I meet others, and the practices might only get worse.
In Taganrog, guards jumps onto the chest of POW, and a comrade from the Marine Corps, whom I was with, told me how one of his comrades was killed right in the reception area in Taganrog. They just jumped on him, broke his ribs, and punctured his lungs or internal organs, and the person died. Someone also told me about the situation in Mordovia where my guys from the unit were forced to walk all day in yellow rubber suits. In the cell we were in, they let us out twice a day to breathe, for the same “check,” as they had a barrack system there. Just imagine that, and this was every time, like a new experience for the torturer.
What can we oppose to this? Only the truth. We must not remain silent. We must not accept this new formula of the game, because it’s not cards; this is our life, and we must show what can be done.
As was mentioned, a bit of relief came when the most brutal tortures stopped. This happened about five months after we were imprisoned when our lists were finalized. When the special forces, who were torturing everyone, received orders that these people were going for exchange, there was no need for them to be beaten so badly anymore.
When the exchange happened, a person from our cell was brought—this happened in November 2022. A 63-year-old man was brought, and his leg was covered in bruises because the guards from the Caucasus—I don’t know if they were Dagestanis, Chechens, or another nationality—simply knew that they were from the Caucasus, and they spoke to each other in their language. They said it was the Caucasus. They beat everyone with a stick on the leg, every day, twice a day. And this man was brought for the exchange, and they just showed him in front of some representatives of Saudi Arabia or the Emirates, who were mediators and asked, “What are you doing?”
We overheard the guards in our prison talking, and they realized that they couldn’t do this anymore, after receiving instructions through Adam Delimkhanov, who oversees exchanges from their side and the connection with Islamic countries. They received a comment that this could not continue because it made them lose face in front of their partners. They had to show all of this to their partners, because in the worst cases, this could simply stop.
I don’t believe that after ten years, anyone will let the Red Cross in, because it’s just a list of crimes. But at least this should be removed, and I really hope for success in advancing this report. I want to see it and hear it, because we couldn’t show what hurt us, but you can. Thank you.