They use force to make me say that I am soldier, but I am a  volunteer - Ihor Talalay on his capture

Ihor Talalay spoke about this in the program "War and Volunteers" by Espreso journalist.

"I was evacuating people and at one checkpoint they did not let me go," says Ihor Talalay. "The people who were traveling with me were let go, but I went to the garage. They demanded by force to say that I was a soldier, but I said I was a volunteer."

Ihor Talalay was in several Russian prisons. He was imprisoned with Ukrainian soldiers and locals from Mariupol.

"For example, there was a pastor who was also detained, they thought he was baptizing Azov," Ihor Talalay states.  "In Mangush, we had about thirty detainees in a three-by-three room. It was really cramped. Sometimes we had to stand. It was the same in all prisons. The only thing in Donetsk itself was that they forbade us to talk to us, to all the detainees who were in captivity. Only one senior officer could come and ask questions."

The interrogations could last for hours.

"I spent two days in Donetsk. I spent 9-10 hours of them being interrogated," recalls Ihor Talalay. "Russia itself sounds scary, but not everyone understands it. Its system, its approach to people. There, the value of human life is equated to zero."

• On January 21, it became known that The Insider published a comic book about the volunteer's story. The story was written by Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Del Col.