Oksana Minenko, a 44-year-old accountant who lives in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, said she was repeatedly detained and tortured by occupying Russian forces.

Her husband, a Ukrainian soldier, died defending Kherson’s Antonivskyi bridge on the first day of full-scale war, she said. During several interrogations in the spring, Russian forces submerged her hands in boiling water, pulled out her fingernails and beat her in the face with rifle butts so badly she needed plastic surgery, according to Minenko.

“One pain grew into another,” said Minenko, speaking while at an improvised humanitarian aid centre in early December with scarring visible around her eyes from what she said was an operation to repair the damage. “I was a living corpse.”

The methods of the alleged physical torture administered by occupying Russian forces have included electric shocks to genitals and other parts of the body, beatings and various forms of suffocation, according to interviews with more than a dozen alleged victims, members of Ukrainian law enforcement and international prosecutors assisting Ukraine.

Reuters wasn’t able to independently corroborate individual accounts shared by Minenko and other Kherson residents but they fit with what Ukrainian authorities and international human rights specialists have said about conditions and treatment during detention, including detainees being blindfolded and bound, subject to beatings and electric shocks and injuries, including severe bruising and broken bones, forced nudity and other forms of sexual violence.

The Kremlin and Russia’s defence ministry didn’t respond to Reuters’ questions, including about alleged torture and unlawful detentions. Moscow, which has said it is conducting a “special military operation" in Ukraine, has denied committing war crimes or targeting civilians.

Read the latest Ukraine-Russia war news: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/01/12/ukraine-russia-war-latest-news-soledar-missile-putin-himars/

#ukraine #war #russia #torture #kherson

Subscribe to The Telegraph with our special offer: just £1 for 3 months. Start your free trial now:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/customer/subscribe/digitalsub/3for1/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_pvid_conversion-subscription_editorial-iniative_03-22_EGW-13_organic_youtube

Get the latest headlines: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Telegraph.co.uk and YouTube.com/TelegraphTV are websites of The Telegraph, the UK's best-selling quality daily newspaper providing news and analysis on UK and world events, business, sport, lifestyle and culture.