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They report mistreatment by the Russian army. 53-year-old Alla Antonova, her 73-year-old mother Natalia and her 29-year-old daughter Anastasia fled their hometown at the beginning of the year. For now they live in an apartment in Kiev. Until the beginning of the year, the family lived in Berdyansk, a city in southeastern Ukraine on the Sea of ​​Azov. Only a few days after the start of the war of aggression, Russian troops occupied the city. She was beaten, mistreated and threatened by Russian soldiers in her home in Berdyansk, Antonova told reporters from the Reuters news agency. The Russians wanted to know where her son-in-law was serving in the Ukrainian army.

Alla Antonova:


»They took my mother to the kitchen, me to the bedroom and closed the door so that no one - including my mother - could hear me. I started screaming. They covered my mouth and said: Don't scream! Otherwise we’ll take you with us.”

Atrocities and arbitrary attacks by Russian soldiers against Ukrainian civilians have been widely documented. Nevertheless, Moscow rejects such allegations. The women's statements cannot be independently verified. But Antonova shows reporters several photos of bruises on her arms and legs.

Alla Antonova

:


"A second soldier touched my head with a metal rod and said: 'We're just stroking you, but if you don't tell us where your son-in-law is stationed…' I said that I didn't know that, that I never met my daughter would have asked where he served. Then the second man put a black plastic bag over my head, covered it and pressed his hand over my face so that I could no longer breathe. I was already starting to lose consciousness when they took the bag off again."

Russian soldiers visited her in her apartment in Berdyansk a total of four times last winter and mistreated her. Once, says Antonova, the soldiers knocked her unconscious. She shows reporters a video that she had to record and send to her daughter to find out where her son-in-law was.

Cell phone video from Alla Antonova:


»Dear daughter, very friendly and good people visited me. They will contact you. If you want to see me again, do whatever they tell you.”

Anastasia Antonova, daughter:


»They sent me the video in which they forced my mother to speak to me. When I got the video, I blocked my mother and grandmother's numbers. I didn't reply to them or try to get in touch. I knew that would only make things worse.”

With the help of Ukrainian volunteers, the family managed to escape to Kiev. The UN recently published a report on the conditions in the occupied territories. He speaks of a “climate of fear,” even more than two years after the Russian invasion. The tactics that Antonova and her family describe are widespread.

Natalia Kucherova, grandmother

:


»I lived in Berdyansk for 73 years, and where have I ended up now? In a strange apartment. We had created a home for ourselves, we lived and worked undisturbed in Berdyansk. These monsters. They’re monsters.”