Soap "meals" and toothpaste sandwiches: Ukrainian marine reveals horrors of Russian captivity

Vladyslav endured hunger, abuse, and torture, lost 60 kg, and was left with a disability, but survived — despite everything. An interview with him was published on the website of the Odesa online outlet Dumska.

As Zadorin emphasized, the hardest part for him was in Kursk, where he was transferred at the end of his captivity. He and another prisoner of war were moved there on December 31, 2022. They were supposed to be released as part of a New Year's exchange, but something went wrong, and he was left in Kursk. It was there that he began to lose weight rapidly.

"My favorite dish there was toothpaste with rye bread. For some reason, they gave us as much toothpaste as we wanted, so we just spread it on the bread. It was a bit sweet, and we ate it like that. We ate worms, snails, we tore apart live mice and ate them, we tried to catch a pigeon — didn’t succeed, ate toilet paper and household soap. They gave us three pieces of bread with sawdust or sand a day," the soldier recalled.

In Kursk, there were also the most brutal interrogations, or rather, tortures for the sake of torture, because by that point, the guys had already told everything they could over the past year.

"They would shove needles under the nails, break bottles over our heads. There was an industrial dryer in the sauna, they would shove the guys in there, and they almost suffocated and passed out. They hammered vertebrae into my spine with a hammer, broke champagne bottles over our heads just for fun. There were many cases where they beat people to death. Many of the guys were raped. For example, one of the forms of sexual violence they called ‘lollipop.’ They would ask, 'Do you like candy?' — and any answer was correct. They would give you a rubber club, which they used to beat you and make you lick and suck it, imitating that. And that was the least of what they did. Many of the guys were raped with that stick. We had one guy, he was raped two or three times a day for three months by the convicts. They paid the guards, and they would take him. After that, he completely lost his mind. At night, it was terrifying when you heard someone being tortured," Zadorin recalled.

Health consequences

Thanks to a prisoner exchange, Vladyslav was able to return home.

"I was diagnosed with a closed head injury, they removed my gallbladder — it had calcified due to the water quality. They wanted to amputate the big toes on my feet, but they managed to treat them later. In Kursk, they gave me size 41 shoes, but I wear size 45. My toes started to rot. The Russians just pulled my nails out with pliers, and that was the treatment. They also hammered three vertebrae during an interrogation. But doctors say the spinal cord wasn’t affected, and it's better not to touch it, just to gradually stretch (the vertebrae)," the defender of Zmiinyi Island described his health condition.

Then began the long rehabilitation process. Thanks to volunteers, Vladyslav and three other freed prisoners were able to go to one of the best resorts in Lithuania, Druskininkai, and then to the Carpathians. According to the man, for two months he practically lost the ability to feel. He didn’t feel either joy or anger. He recalls that even when his parents came to visit, he felt indifferent.

"I was diagnosed with PTSD. I realized that I can't drink alcohol. It immediately triggers uncontrollable aggression and an exaggerated sense of justice. I have the typical symptoms. Now, I believe I’ve learned to control it and live with it. The Military Medical Commission gave me a third-degree disability, and now I’ll be applying for a second-degree disability because my health is deteriorating," added Vladyslav.

• Currently, Vladyslav Zadorin is an ambassador for the Break the Fake project, which specializes in combating propaganda and disinformation.