Ekaterina, a resident of Sukhoi Log, Sverdlovsk Region, did not know anything about the condition of her military husband for three weeks, until on the evening of November 15, from an unfamiliar Ukrainian number, they sent her a photo of him with the caption: “I found your loss.”
31-year-old Vladimir went to serve in the Russian army after he received a summons as part of a partial mobilization.
On October 24, he called Ekaterina and talked about his health, but then stopped communicating.
In mid-November, Catherine learned that her husband had been taken prisoner.
Under the photograph of Vladimir, an unknown person wrote to the woman that her husband was “alive, whole,” and asked: “Will you pay for it?”
The woman agreed, but after that no specific demands were made to her anymore.
Ekaterina and Vladimir's mother periodically receive his photos and videos from different Ukrainian and Russian numbers.
On one of them he sits with his hands tied with yellow tape, on the other he digs a trench and, under the dictation of a voice-over, says: “The Ukrainian army is the first in the world.”
The woman herself was asked what she thought about Ukraine, why she let her husband go to the special operation zone.
In response to her answer that a partial mobilization had been carried out, the interlocutor stated that she had to break Vladimir's arm or leg in order to prevent his participation in the SVO.
In social networks, Catherine began to threaten that they would cripple her husband in captivity.
“They wrote that I was a creature because I sent my husband to Ukraine, and that he was being castrated for this.
They're trying to intimidate.
I immediately deleted this message so as not to see it, ”recalls the woman.
Several times she was allowed to communicate with Vladimir via video link, but he spoke mainly under dictation.
“He only said what they whispered to him there - that we filed for an exchange.
In the video, he is not beaten, but it is clear that he is frightened, ”says the interlocutor of RT.
The prisoner's aunt, Lyubov, also believes that the nephew was forced to utter a pre-written text, because his speech was very unnatural for him.
“He said that he was shown some kind of decree from the Russian president that he was allegedly recognized as a deserter and that as soon as he entered the territory of the Russian Federation, he would be shot,” Lyubov recalls.
In addition, Vladimir's wife and mother are attacked with phone calls.
Lyubov says that in just one day the relatives of the prisoner of war received 50 calls from nine Ukrainian and Russian numbers.
Vladimir's relatives cannot not answer these calls - they are afraid to miss important information about his condition or the opportunity to talk with him.
“They just cut off the phone, it's impossible!
They can also call at midnight.
For example, they called their mothers, introduced themselves as some kind of general from Moscow.
They said in social networks to find a video where a soldier is beaten with a sledgehammer, and said: “The same thing awaits your son.”
She roars.
I tell her: “That's it, turn off the phone!”
Love remembers.
A photo of Volodymyr in captivity was published in a Telegram group, whose administrators collect money from people to reward the Ukrainian military for capturing Russian fighters.
The author of the post claims that the sponsors allegedly sent $300 for the UAF capturing Vladimir.
© photo from personal archive
The relatives of the men have already applied to the military registration and enlistment office, the FSB and the Ministry of Defense with a statement that Vladimir was taken prisoner, and with a request to put his name on the exchange list.
“There is no official response from the departments yet.
Last week, the military prosecutor’s office told us that our request to include him in the list of prisoners was sent to Moscow,” Lyubov says.
“If you don’t do it, you won’t see your son”
The fact that the Ukrainian security forces intimidate and blackmail the families of prisoners of war became known back in the spring of this year.
In March, Human Rights Ombudsman in the Russian Federation Tatyana Moskalkova said that relatives of captured servicemen receive calls and texts from unknown numbers demanding to go to rallies against the special operation.
In April, Human Rights Ombudsman in the Luhansk People's Republic Viktoria Serdyukova said she had received several statements from native servicemen that the Ukrainian security forces were trying to force them to organize protests.
According to her, the families of those who were taken prisoner receive videos on social networks with fighters who are mutilated by beatings.
“After sending such a video message, our mothers and wives bring screenshots of correspondence, where the persons who are holding their loved ones, by threatening to kill both the military personnel and their relatives who are here, force them to come out with slogans, saying that Donbass is Ukraine,” Serdyukova said.
Vladivostok resident Svetlana (not her real name) was subjected to such blackmail by Ukrainian subscribers after her 20-year-old son, who was a contract worker, was taken prisoner.
In October, a young man called his mother and, under dictation, stated that he was with the Ukrainian military and had committed a serious crime - he had killed a man.
Later it turned out that the Russian soldier was taken prisoner when he was alone on a mission.
The young man ran into Ukrainian soldiers who threw a grenade at his feet.
Before being captured, he killed one of the attackers.
“Ukrainians called me myself and set conditions: to organize some kind of rally and so on.
They said: “If you don’t do it, you won’t see your son,” Svetlana recalls.
On November 4, her son, along with other Russian soldiers, returned to his homeland as part of an exchange with the Ukrainian side.
Another soldier serving in the People's Militia of the LPR, Alexander Chupra, said that he and his colleagues were tortured to record a video message to their relatives in order to blackmail them.
“They started beating (during interrogation. -
RT
).
I hear they start to interrogate my boys.
They wanted to cut someone there, they set fire to it with a blowtorch.
A man came up with a camera.
He says: “So, I wrote to you, you have to say this on camera.”
I told the camera everything that was there.
There was an appeal to relatives - blackmail.
I learned from my girlfriend that a video was sent to her so that she wrote down a statement and sort of sent the money, ”RIA Novosti quotes the words of a military man who was released from Ukrainian captivity in the fall.