The terrible story of blackmailing the wife of Russian serviceman Alexei Motuz, who was captured by Ukrainian nationalists in the Northern Military District zone, was not the only one.
Earlier, RT told how unknown people from Ukrainian numbers demanded intimate photos from the wife of a prisoner of war in exchange for her husband’s life. Motuz’s wife Anastasia refused to comply with these demands and eventually received a photo of her husband with a bullet through his head. Members of Alexei's family still refuse to believe that the man was killed. They hope that the pictures they were sent are fake.
A resident of the Belgorod region, Natalya, told RT that her boyfriend, 39-year-old Roman Zhernovoy, left for the front line on December 17. On February 1, he warned his beloved that he would not be in touch for several days - his unit was leaving on a mission. On February 5, the woman received a call from a Ukrainian number. It was Roman. According to Natalya, she immediately realized that he was captured.
“I asked where exactly he was being held captive. Roman said he didn’t know,” Natalya recalls. — We talked to him, they (Ukrainians
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) hung up on him and started writing to me in the messenger. They sent him photographs of him sitting blindfolded and with his hands tied... They demanded that he send naked photos - then they would allegedly hand over Roman for exchange.”
© From personal archive
The messages told Natalya that while she hesitates, the man is being tortured with electric shock: “You are dooming him to suffer. He’s getting electric shocks because you haven’t thrown it off (photo
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) until now.”
The Russian serviceman’s tormentors also sent his lover grisly photos: a tied-up Roman with a broken face, then a photo of a mutilated hand with his fingers cut off. As in the case of Alexey Motuz. Moreover, judging by the photos sent by the monsters, Motuz and Zhernovoy were probably held and tortured in the same room.
Natalya tried to persuade her Ukrainian interlocutors not to touch her lover. The woman also reported what was happening to the police and Roman’s parents. She refused to comply with the blackmailers’ demands and send them photographs.
“The police told us not to contact them. At first there were a lot of voice messages (
RT
) that Roman left - he was forced to do this by the Ukrainians who were holding him. In one of the messages you can even hear them dictating to him how to talk to me. This continued all day on February 5th. Then the voice sounds from him stopped,” says RT’s interlocutor.
Voice messages from Roman, which his lover had to listen to, are terrifying. In them, the man tells Natalya that he is being severely beaten and asks her to talk to his tormentors on the phone and fulfill their demands, otherwise he will be killed.
“Natasha, they beat me very hard, they cut my fingers. Natasha, do what they ask, otherwise they’ll just kill me,” Roman says in one of the voice messages.
Location not established
Since the evening of February 5, there has been no further news about Roman. His whereabouts have not yet been established. Neither the military man's family nor his girlfriend Natalya know whether the man is alive. The Belgorod Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is currently investigating the situation surrounding serviceman Roman Zhernov.
“On the first day I wrote a statement to the police. My mother, Roman’s other relatives and I also went to the administration of Belgorod and went to the administration of our village of Severny. We wrote letters to the Commissioner for Human Rights, Tatyana Moskalkova, and to the Ministry of Defense,” Natalya listed.
As RT managed to find out, the Ukrainian number from which Natalya received calls may belong to a certain 26-year-old serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Vladislav Bokhonchik.
In turn, one of the numbers from which the mother and wife of Alexey Motuz called could belong to a native of the Sumy region, Vitaly Yarovenko. These numbers are currently unavailable for contact.
According to Roman Zhernovoy’s girlfriend Natalya, the man came to the Northern Military District as part of partial mobilization; he was called up for service on October 20, 2022. Judging by documents from Roman’s military unit, which were at the disposal of RT, Zhernovoy went to the front line as a driver.
In February 2023, Roman was injured during a mission; he was diagnosed with a serious fracture of the humeral neck. In connection with this, the serviceman was sent for treatment, which he underwent until December 2023, when he was called up to serve again.