Russia tortured Ukrainian POWs with shocks to genitals, brutal beatings

Russia built a sickening torture system to persecute Ukrainian prisoners of war — where captives were given relentless electrical shocks to their genitals and were beaten so savagely that police batons were broken, two former prison guards confessed.

Following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin allegedly sent out an order to its prison system to follow one key objective against POWs: “Be cruel, don’t pity them,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

The order gave Russian guards immunity to enact barbarism inside their jails, including one tactic where they would attach electrical wires to a prisoner’s genitals and let it go until the batteries ran out, according to former prison officials who testified before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The guards also allegedly beat the prisoners relentlessly, often breaking their police batons and experimenting with which type of weapon hurt the Ukrainian soldiers the most.

The prison staff would also intentionally direct their beating at the same spot to cause the most damage and for an infection to sprout, the ex-officials and freed prisoners told the WSJ.

The guards would then allegedly withhold treatment so as to allow gangrene to set in, forcing amputations.

Other prisoners suffered blood poisoning and muscle tissue rot over the infections, with at least one person dying from sepsis, one former Russian prison official said.

The guards and their supervisors were all granted immunity thanks to a new policy that allowed them to turn off their body cameras and wear masks when dealing to POWs — so they can’t be recognized later, another prison official added.

Andriy Yegorov, 25, recalled his 30-month stint at a prison in Russia’s Bryansk region, where guards would force him and other captured Ukrainian soldiers to run 100 yards in the halls while holding mattresses above their heads.

Whenever the jogging prisoners would pass by a guard, the masked staffer would beat them in the ribs. After the run, the prisoners would be forced to do sit-ups, all while the guards continued to punch and beat them with batons.

“They loved it, you could hear them laughing between themselves while we cried out in pain,” Yegorov, who suffered five broken vertebrae, told the WSJ.

Pavel Afisov, another 25-year-old POW, said he was stripped naked and repeatedly shocked with a stun gun when he arrived at a penitentiary in the Tver region.

Afisov said he and other prisoners were forced to praise Moscow and its army while singing the Russian national anthem, and if they ever got the words wrong, they would be beaten.

The 25-year-old said the torture left him unable to sleep after he was released last October out of fear that his freedom was only a dream and that if he slept, he would wake up back inside the prison cell.

“Whenever I finally trusted myself enough to fall asleep all I had was nightmares,” he said.

Despite the allegations and testimony before the ICC — which continues to investigate the claims after filling arrest warrants for Putin — the Kremlin denies any wrongdoing.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov maintains that Russia is open about its treatment of POWs and that any allegations regarding torture are unfounded.

Russia and Ukraine have conducted 59 POW exchanges since the war began. While Ukraine does not publish the exact number of POWs under Russian captivity, estimates show that at least 8,000 are being held in prisons in Russia and occupied parts of Ukraine.