Ukrainian female POWs detail horrors of Russian captivity, including torture and rape: Threat of death was always there

Ukrainian women captured by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s invading armies suffered incredible indignities and humiliation during their time as prisoners of war — including being forced to march naked through snow, regular beatings and serial rapes.The victims — four of whom spoke to The Telegraph about the merciless torture campaign waged against them — said their hardened Russian captors subjected them to cruel degradations that included exposing themselves to the soldiers.“They led us to the showers with bags over our heads, where we were forced to undress,” Larysa Kycherenko, a 53-year-old member of Ukraine’s National Guard, told the outlet.“We had to walk naked in front of the men and everyone else, bent over, through freezing cold water,” she said.“Afterwards, we were forced to sing the Russian anthem while naked.”“We returned to the cells in tears, utterly distraught, crying and in a state of hysteria,” she continued.

“It was inhumane.To them, we were nothing.”The brutality not only highlights the savageness with which the Russians treat their prisoners — actions that almost certainly violate the Geneva Conventions and constitute war crimes — but also illuminates the different threats captured women face in comparison to their male counterparts.“If it’s hard for men, it’s even harder for women – many of the women weren’t fighters,” Kycherenko said.Kycherenko — who was captured alongside her husband and 34-year-old son during the occupation of Mariupol in 2022 — was forced to stand for 12 hours a day, beaten and psychologically tortured, she told the outlet.A guard once slammed her against a wall and lashed her with a metal pole — then brushed off her requests for medical treatment to close a leg wound from the attack.

 “We were constantly being told we were fascists, and that if we weren’t shot by our own people during an exchange, someone else would kill us,” she said.“The threat of death was ...