MRussian forces arrested Yakhailo Orlovsky, a Ukrainian taxi driver, and held him for two days in a hole in a Ukrainian (ice) forest. Then, while in prison, he was beaten with boxing gloves, electrocuted and forced to sing the Russian anthem over and over again. Now, recount the terrifying moments of Sally Lockwood from Sky News.
“The first thing I thought about was how to survive. The second was that I was going to die.”Orlovsky in an interview with the channel, after he was part of the prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia in April.
When he was captured, the taxi driver was fighting with the Ukrainian forces in the city of Chernihiv. Then he was stripped naked and taken to a forest where he “lived” for two days in a hole dug in the ground.
The channel indicated that after this time he was transferred to a prison in Kursk, Russia. Here, the Russian anthem is played 10 to 15 times a day. “We had to line up and sing the anthem of the Russian Federation,” he recalls.
There, he was even beaten with boxing gloves “in the kidneys, liver, ribs, neck and back”. “They took my phone and even my ring. All my documents. They are still with them.”.
Mikhailo Orlovsky was exchanged for Russian prisoners held by Ukrainian forces on his mother’s birthday: “I remember her tears of joy.” It is impossible to forget about the horror.
See the Sky News report:
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