Horrific torture complexes used by Russian army commanders to force terrified citizens to fight and die on the frontlines in Ukraine for Vladimir Putin‘s special military operation have been revealed in a damning new investigation.
Independent media outlet ASTRA uncovered a slew of what it described as ‘torture basements’ where mobilised soldiers are allegedly handcuffed, beaten and forced to go to the war.
In one particular site – a destroyed building on the territory of the headquarters of the 272nd motorised rifle regiment in the Nizhny Novgorod region – the men are illegally detained and subjected to heinous violence.
Footage shows the interior of this factory factory of suffering, along with another site in Russian occupied Ukraine.
Officially, neither of the sites exist. But they are designed to break the will of each and every inmate, forcing them to accept being sent to the meatgrinder.
Independent media outlet ASTRA uncovered a slew of what it described as ‘torture basements’
Footage shows the interior of this factory factory of suffering
Inmates at the facility are illegally detained and subjected to heinous violence to force them back to war
The squalid conditions are seen in the Nizhny Novgorod facility
In Nizhny Novgorod, men are kept under the supervision of the military police for days without water, food or toilet, according to the outlet’s investigation.
They are ‘kept like cattle’ under the supervision of the ruthless Captain Bogdan Romanov, the outlet suggested, adding the inmates are often barred from medical examinations or surgery, even though many have war wounds.
One maimed soldier even was kept there despite losing a leg, according to ASTRA.
At least three of the detainees had their ribs broken with a police baton and were then sent back to the war, while others were terrorised with powerful Airsoft grenades that look exactly like the real article.
Meanwhile, at another ‘concentration camp’ in Russian-occupied Donetsk region, a ‘torture conveyor’ operates in the disused Petrovskaya mine.
Among the inmates are soldiers who refused to take part in notorious Russian ‘meat-grinder’ assaults on the frontline.
Others are held because they had tried to escape, or for other supposed transgressions.
The Petrovskaya site is also a place where people seen as enemies of Russia are abused or exterminated.
One alleged inmate was Russell Bentley – a US citizen who fought on the side of pro-Putin forces in Ukraine following the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The 63-year-old Texan-turned-Putin apologist was an outspoken pro-war advocate, but is said to have fallen out with the commanding authorities in Donetsk.
Bentley was reported dead 11 days after he went missing in the Donetsk region in April.
He was reportedly ‘tortured in the Petrovskaya mine’ and may have died there, according to ASTRA.
Inmates sit in a military cot in the Petrvoskaya mine in Donetsk
This image shows how inmates are handcuffed together, with some also chained to bedframes and pipes to prevent their escape
Ilya Ivanov, an alleged mastermind of the Russian 5th brigade torture camp in Donetsk
One alleged inmate of the Donetsk mine was Russell Bentley – a US citizen who fought on the side of pro-Putin forces in Ukraine
The torture complex in Donetsk is believed to be overseen by Ilya Ivanov, deputy commander of the 5th Motorised Rifle Brigade.
His commanders force their subordinates to go on ‘meat assaults’ by torturing them, according to some troops unfortunate enough to have passed through.
‘They bring the soldiers there with bags over their heads,’ said a former prisoner.
‘They don’t feed them. They give you a bag if you want to go to the toilet.
‘When they locked me up, they hung us up by the arms and legs from the ceiling with chains.’
But this prison is also used by the commanders of the brigade to cash in on the war, according to the ASTRA report.
Donetsk human rights activist Maksim Vedoprav said of the purpose of the torture mine: ‘It’s not just sadism. There is one main reason – money.’
The terror jail operates a scam receiving Russian army salary and compensation payments for intimidated men in its dungeons, he said.
‘You shoot a man in the legs – you get 3 million roubles [£25,500] for the wound. They write out a power of attorney for their people.
‘A man dies – you get 6 million roubles [£51,000] for the dead.
‘And while he serves them, but in reality sits in a basement [cell], they receive 200,000 [£1,700] for him [in salary payments] every month.
‘Excellent business. In fact, for everyone who sits in the basement, the first thing they do to them is take away their salary card or force them to rewrite a power of attorney for payments to fictitious persons.
‘Every single one of them is in the basement, but none of them receive their money.’
