""You can cope with anything, just not being separated from your children. I'm carrying on for them," says Yulia Dvornichenko. She was arrested in 2021 and held in Russia, before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For a long time, she was unable to speak of her ordeal but now she has broken her silence. Dvornichenko, who hails from Ukraine's Donetsk region, spent a year and a half in prisons operated by the so-called "People's Republic of Donetsk,""
"The women, who worked as doctors, teachers, florists, or retail assistants, were all accused of being spies by those running the "People's Republic." Dvornichenko says each of them were tortured in order to attain forced confessions. "The methods were the same for men and women. They were tortured with electric shocks. They stripped me of my clothes, beat me, doused me with cold water," she recounts."
A woman from Donetsk was arrested in 2021 by Russian-backed separatists and held in detention for a year and a half. She and other detainees were accused of espionage despite civilian professions and were reportedly forced to give confessions under torture. Methods described include electric shocks, beatings, stripping, and dousing with cold water. She was not allowed to see her sons during detention. She fled earlier to Mariupol after separatists gained control, returned after her husband died, worked as a bus driver to support her children, and returned from captivity in 2022.
Read at www.dw.com
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