Oleg Tolmachev

Funeral of a one-year-old Angelina who was killed by a russia drone.

A horrifying story of how the russians torture people. Donetsk doctor Ihor Kirianenko was 57 when the russians seized him on the road. They tied him to a metal table, stretching his arms and legs like on a cross. Then they attached wires to his fingers and toes, shocking his genitals and ears. They broke his ribs and fingers, cut his face to the bone, and pulled out his teeth with pliers. “I screamed, and they laughed: ‘Don’t scream so loud — there’s a kindergarten above us. You’ll scare the children,’” Hromadske reports. After the torture, they brought him home. Ihor stood barefoot, his face shattered, wrapped in a plastic bag. The russians searched for wiretaps, smashed his antique shop, overturned furniture, and stole his equipment. Then they arrested his wife. After that, they took him back to the torture chamber. On New Year’s Eve, the guards got drunk. “They knocked out all my teeth. Pulled my canines out with pliers. I heard a crunch and blacked out. When I came to, they were kicking me, breaking ribs and fingers. They were drunk and didn’t feel their own strength,” Ihor recalls. They brought him back to the cell, but the guards refused to take him — he was covered in blood. They feared he would die. A doctor was called. He looked at Ihor and said: “He won’t die overnight, don’t worry.” They forced Ihor to sign a statement saying he had fallen down the stairs. Blood dripped onto the paper as he signed. The cell reeked of mold; rats scurried between holes in the walls. The food was ground fish with bones and scales. Ihor’s fingers healed crookedly, without bandages. In court, he testified about the torture, but the judge ruled: “No evidence of torture established.” He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. In the Makiivka colony, he refused seven times to take a russian passport. During roll calls, he always responded in Ukrainian: “Ihor Volodymyrovych.” For that, they beat him. On August 15, 2025, he finally returned to Ukraine. “People came out to greet us. An old man in underwear with crooked legs waved a flag. A grandmother began to cross herself. People smiled and cried at the same time.” Ihor spent seven years in captivity. He is now 64. He says he just wants to live. Source: translated and adopted from Tymofiy Mylovanov