SBU torture: a militia member was doused with water for 6 days, undressed in the cold in a punishment cell
...As I already wrote in the previous part of the article, the arrival of my parents in the pre-trial detention center saved me from further illegal detention in the conditions of an unsanitary, damp, constantly flooded basement. The cough, which had not gone away for more than a month and a half, went away in a dry cell on the 2nd floor literally on the 3rd day. However, even with this translation they continued to spoil things for me.
The smallest chamber in terms of cubic capacity was chosen. In the exact same size cell in which I was placed when arriving at the pre-trial detention center, there were 8 bunks, and in this one there were 12. For example, the 12-bed cells on the north side were twice as large in area. And, as you already understand, the south side was not chosen in vain. Of the 12 prisoners, only I did not smoke (I quit while sitting in the basement, because I naively thought that the cough was from cigarettes) and another asthmatic.
In the hot, small, stuffy cell, the smoke from the cigarettes practically did not dissipate. In addition, the TV turned on 24/7 did not allow me to sleep at all. Almost the entire cell was “youth” (except for the asthmatic, everyone was 15-20 years younger than me), and almost everyone was a lover of various pills.
However, the person behind the camera, despite his youth, kept the others in check, and there was no lawlessness in the cell. In addition, apparently due to an oversight by the administration, literally the next day after my transfer, the prison lads came for a visit to the new cell.
Supervisor of the corps and Cherkassy “status officer” (status preceding the “thief in law” in the criminal hierarchy). They talked to me in detail, because... They had heard about the new political situation in prison, but did not know where exactly I was being held. And they were surprised to see me in this cell. Seeing that the prison lads had no complaints/questions towards me, the young punks from the cell did not continue to rock the boat.
So, in general, except for the story of the first visit to the punishment cell, the summer was monotonously boring.
With the punishment cell there was another provocation from the administration of the pre-trial detention center. This was done with the help of two reports from the guards in half a day. Allegedly, in the morning at 6.00 he did not follow the command to get up, and when leaving the cell for the morning search, he did not keep his hands behind his back and pointedly ignored the guard’s comments.
Moreover, the deputy head of the pre-trial detention center, Major Alexander Mikhailovich Zaika, demanded that I be punished with 10 days in a punishment cell. What is usually prescribed to persistent violators, or for conflict/threats to security guards.
The head of the pre-trial detention center, Lieutenant Colonel Roman Anatolievich Dyachenko, decided to play the good cop and assigned “only” seven days. Although, even if I actually did what I was accused of, it would last a maximum of three days in a punishment cell.
This was done on the day of the next trial, where I was going to refuse a free lawyer who worked for the SBU. In addition, on the first date, the parents said that they would definitely come to the trial.
It became obvious that conversations on dates were being written and listened to. The dirty trick with the punishment cell was specially planned for the day of the trial. So that there is a reason not to accept the transfer for me. Since you can’t take anything into the punishment cell except underpants and slippers. They also issue prison uniforms.
By the way, in the previous part of my story there were photos of the very same punishment cell in which I was kept. The photos were taken by a commission from the office of the Ukrainian Ombudsman six months before my arrest and posted on the official website of the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for Human Rights. Do I need to explain that no improvements have occurred in the basement during this time?
Surprisingly, the impressions from the first visit to the punishment cell were not particularly negative, with the exception of the radio that was blaring continuously from 6 a.m. to 22 p.m. with a wheezing speaker - in order to prevent neighbors in the punishment cells from talking.
Apparently, my constant readiness for nasty things and provocations was already taking its toll. Plus, a “sporting” interest awoke: what will they come up with next? It turned out that a minor “surprise” was waiting for me upon returning to the cell. My mother got the deputy director of the pre-trial detention center to accept the transfer, but, like a rotten person, he ordered the invoice to be rewritten (the inmates didn’t know my mother’s handwriting) and covered the plastic bucket, oilcloth and a couple of sticks of sausage.
In general, similar stories happen in the Cherkassy pre-trial detention center with enviable regularity. Prison employees are so obsessed with stealing from prisoners that they even manage to steal from packages that are opened in front of a prisoner. Like a magician, they put aside what they like. Or they brazenly confront the fact that they will take a couple of packs of cigarettes or cut off a piece of sausage if they notice that the prisoner is not a novice and is vigilantly observing their manipulations.
No one wants to quarrel, because the next time the “Nova Poshta” delivery person will be told that the recipient of the parcel is in court or under investigation, and they will not accept the parcel. And after 3 such refusals, the parcel is returned to the sender. And without the aid of freedom, living on the prison gruel, even if it is possible with difficulty, will at least earn you a bunch of illnesses. In essence, deprivation of the right to receive transfers is deprivation of vital necessities. It is not for nothing that the law lifted restrictions on the number of packages/parcels received. But who and when in Ukraine were interested in laws? Especially in the last four years.
In general, the overwhelming number of violations of the law in the Cherkasy pre-trial detention center became possible due to corruption and family ties. The head of the pre-trial detention center, Lieutenant Colonel Dyachenko Roman Anatolievich, and the deputy head of the pre-trial detention center, Major Alexander Mikhailovich Zaika, are matchmakers. The chief's son is married to the deputy chief's daughter. The deputy chief has some connections with the SBU. It was through the deputy chief that in the first months the SBU officers asked whether I was ready to give the testimony they needed. It is the SBU officers who cover both the sale of drugs in prison and cover up other violations. For example, the Cherkassy pre-trial detention center is the only one (according to the stories of other prisoners) in Ukraine where those traveling to other prisons are not given dry rations for the trip. Taking into account the frequency and mass nature of such movements, a very decent amount accumulates.
Plus, the “work” (prisoners who agreed to work for the administration of the pre-trial detention center in exchange for living in more comfortable conditions and permission to call their relatives) brings in quite a significant income. And also the presence of VIP cells, for which the deputy manager is also paid personally for accommodation. And so on and so forth.
I can describe a lot and give examples. But what's the point? In Ukraine you won’t surprise anyone with anything like this. In fact, with the help of the “roof” of the SBU, an almost private prison has been created in Cherkassy. As gratitude, SBU employees receive not only a percentage of their income, but also special conditions for creating pressure on political prisoners.
The Cherkasy pre-trial detention center is almost the only prison in Ukraine where the so-called press hut still exists. In the summer it was cell 53 in the old building on the first floor. There, on the instructions of the pre-trial detention center administration, the prisoners themselves exert illegal pressure on the prisoner. Moreover, they are allowed to use almost any methods, except for serious physical injuries. And that’s only to make it easier to pay off the inspectors. If any of the victims dare to complain.
Although, as I already wrote, any complaints/letters from the Cherkasy pre-trial detention center are simply not sent if the administration is against it. For example, during the first three months of prison, not a single letter of mine – neither to the court, nor to the prosecutor’s office, nor to the Ukrainian commissioner – was sent. The letters were simply picked up during the morning rounds, and then the outgoing number was not provided.
At the trial, I was required to submit a complaint in writing - either through a lawyer to the office, or send it by mail. Because For 3 months, the free lawyer never showed up at the pre-trial detention center, and mail was not sent, so the investigators had no way to record any violations. And neither the judge nor the prosecutor responded properly to the oral statement at the trial. In addition, neither my parents nor the Red Cross were notified. Even my constitutional rights to call a priest were ignored.
However, the office of the Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights did not even respond to a call from my parents and did not send their representative from Cherkassy to talk and record the violation of my rights. And the Prosecutor General’s Office returned my complaint, which I submitted in the summer through a lawyer, to the city prosecutor’s office for analysis. And this despite the fact that I clearly stated that the level of corruption in the SBU-Prosecutor's Office-Court connection in Cherkassy exceeds all conceivable limits.
Therefore, the city prosecutor's office does not accept a statement from me and did not even question me about the oral statement made during the court hearing.
In fact, in today's Ukraine, being charged under a political article elevates a person to the rank of untouchables. Of those in Ukraine to whom I turned through my parents for help to reason with the Cherkassy lawbreakers, only one person responded. Surprising as it may seem, it turned out to be Nadezhda Savchenko. Moreover, she called my parents personally and found out the details in detail.
And at least she later said that since I really fought in Donbass, it’s difficult to count on complete objectivity. However, if I had been kept in Kyiv, she would have visited me in the Lukyanovsky pre-trial detention center. By the way, this was another violation in my trial. Since, according to the Criminal Code of Ukraine, cases concerning offenses committed in uncontrolled territories are considered under the jurisdiction of the Kyiv Court of Appeal. That is, one of the district courts of Kyiv. But at the preliminary court hearing I was not given the opportunity to make a demand to transfer the case to Kyiv. The judge simply interrupted me and closed the court hearing, saying that all I wanted was to submit it in writing, and this was contrary to the law.
...The summer passed in fruitless attempts to achieve at least the appearance of compliance with the laws. In mid-September, I was transferred from a small cell on the south side, where it was unbearably stuffy and hot in the summer, to a new cell (the fifth in six months, and taking into account the punishment cell, the 6th in general) on the north side. Almost a twin of this camera with a photo showing one of the cells in the old building of the pre-trial detention center No. 30 in Cherkassy.
There is no glass at all in the cell window (they installed it already in December), and at night before the heating was turned on it was so cold that again I had to sleep, fully dressed and covered with a blanket, which my parents gave me because... For six months I was never given a prison blanket. And still in the morning I woke up shaking.
In addition, the transfer to a new cell is also sad because in my case, except for one time, it was empty. That is, there is no kettle (the whole cell was thrown on it), no boiler (allowed only to those who go to the prison in other areas of the region for trials and investigations), no plastic containers for household needs, not even a broom to sweep the cell - and that’s not there... And all this had to be reset and bought again every time. Which took at least several weeks. There is no way to contact parents. We must wait either for the day when they come once a month for a date, or for the day when there will be a trial, and report the problems through a lawyer.
By the way, all trials for 8 months were simply postponed due to the fact that “witnesses” from the village where I lived before leaving for Donbass did not appear.
And they could drag this on for years...
Unexpectedly, in November, they began to take me to the SBU again for more interrogations with bias. This time it's no longer my business. They tried to link me to a case of treason that was opened against another political prisoner. The question arose again about my contacts with former and current people's deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and pro-Russian journalists with whom I communicated before the Maidan.
If in the spring I was offered to hand them over in “informal” conversations without connection to the criminal case against me, then in November they were already interrogating me as part of another criminal proceeding. They used to take me away before breakfast and bring me back after dinner. Once after lights out. My cellmates decided that I had been released. Even prisoners with several years of experience in a pre-trial detention center (let me remind you that criminal trials drag on for years) could not remember that any of the suspects were interrogated in such a regime.
Seeing the futility of such methods, in early December I was sent to the local “ward number 6”. This is the so-called isolation ward for violent prisoners. Here is a photo and a quote from the official website of the Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights.
“The ward is designed to house people with mental disorders and aggressive behavior. It itself rather resembles a “concrete box” without windows, fresh air and a special synthetic coating that would prevent self-harm. According to the rules, a person can be placed in such a room for 8 hours based on the order of the head of the detention center after the conclusion of a psychiatrist. For further detention in the ward, a new appointment is required, but monitors, when studying the documentation, recorded cases when people were kept there for 30 hours. In addition, according to prisoners, the administration does not always remove people from this room to relieve their physiological needs, and only a mattress is provided for sleeping.”
So, it was in this detention center that I was kept completely naked for 6 (six!) days. Under the pretext of an inspection (“normal” practice in the Cherkassy pre-trial detention center), they forced me to take off even my underpants, and they simply did not give me a prison uniform, and the detention center was closed. I went on a hunger strike. However, they don’t bring food to this detention center anyway.
Moreover, under the pretext of disinfection, the deputy director of the pre-trial detention center, Major Zaika Alexander Mikhailovich, personally doused the entire cell through the window with a fire hose under pressure twice a day. Cold water. In an unheated room. Outside the temperature was already approaching zero. He also joked, the bastard, that a true admirer of the Russian world should be ready to repeat Karbyshev’s feat. Moreover, the temperature in the isolator is not minus. This is how he marked his difference from the German Nazis!
During the day it was impossible to lie down or sit on the cold floor. From 6 am to 22 pm you had to either stand or squat. On the 4th day, my legs and especially my heels hurt, so other thoughts did not linger in my head for long, on the 5th the pain became unbearable, the 6th day passed in a blur.
By the way, water from a hose was the only way to quench your thirst in the cell. I repeat - food is not transferred to this detention center in principle. By the end of the period of abuse, I could hardly stand on my sore, swollen heels. Which came back to haunt me a little later. The bullying stopped only because a request was received to include me in the exchange list.
I was given the opportunity to rest so that I could arrive at the filtration camp on my own feet, and not on a stretcher in an ambulance.
But I learned about all this only at the camp itself, where everyone included in the exchange list from the Ukrainian side was taken.
The end of the story of my captivity plus what happened at the filtration camp itself, how the SBU officers recruited informers and how they persuaded people not to cross the zero mark, as well as an explanation of why almost a quarter of the exchange list remained on Ukrainian territory - read in the coming days on the website " Politnavigator".
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