"We crawled naked on our knees for a long time." 678 days in Russian captivity.
"We crawled naked on our knees for a long time", "rubber truncheons were broken against us", and "an evening walk meant voluntary consent to be beaten and humiliated" - this is only a small fraction of what sergeant of the National Guard of Ukraine Andriy Staryshchak experienced in captivity. He spent almost 2 years in a Russian prison. Andriy was taken prisoner during the defense of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Then he was transported in transit to Belarus to be transported to pre-trial detention center No. 2 in the city of Novozybkov, Bryansk region. A year later, the Ukrainian serviceman ended up in a colony in the village of Donskoye, Tula Region. In an interview with the Ukrainian service of Radio Liberty, he spoke about what is happening to Ukrainian prisoners in Russia.
You spent 678 days in Russian captivity and you talk about everything with a smile..
"I will say this: after the beatings I experienced there, I returned to the cell with songs and dances. Although there were fractures, and there were a lot of things... But on the CCTV cameras [Russian guards – RFE/RL] they saw me coming in and dancing. I wanted the guards to choke with anger. They can't break us...
I come from the Ternopil region, the village of Skala-Podilska. In 2019, I signed a contract (for service in the National Guard of Ukraine – RS note) in the city of Slavutych, and my service began at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. We controlled the passage of employees to the station. And on February 24, 2022, on command, they armed themselves and went to defend the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
There were 169 of us with machine guns, and four tank columns came at us. We did everything to prevent explosions at the station, because we definitely don't need Chernobyl-2. Bloodshed at the station was also prevented. But more than 2.5 thousand units of equipment entered Ukraine from this side, the convoy moved for about 4 hours.
You were taken prisoner on the first day. In what conditions were you kept at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after that?
"We were lucky that we at least had our own sleeping bags. At that moment, the Russians had nothing of their own. But on the other hand, they jerked the bolt of the machine gun every time you passed by. Nuclear facilities are not subject to seizure, and they justified themselves by the fact that they are looking for bombs on the territory of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which we are planting. We tried to explain to them that there was radiation around.
And there was a time when they were given the command to dig in in the Red Forest. For some of them, it ended with radiation sickness. After all, in some places there are very large radiation spots. I also received a fairly large dose while I was a prisoner at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant: we were there for 45 days, from February 15 to March 31, until the prisoners were taken to the territory of Belarus.
They put bags on our heads, wrapped our legs with duct tape, and when this was not enough for them, they handcuffed them into binding ties. Then I was transported to Narovlya – this is Belarus, where I was placed on a farm, as it can be called, and I was kept there for several days. They drew up documents for all of us, and then sent us to the Bryansk region of Russia, to pre-trial detention center No. 2. The military handed us over to the Federal Penitentiary Service.
Source
@freerussia_report
