Testimony of a woman who was raped and tortured by the Russians: “I can’t describe the pain. I was determined to kill myself”

Alla, a 52-year-old woman, was abducted by Russian soldiers during Putin’s army occupation of Izium, a town in the Kharkiv region.

She was raped and tortured by the Russians for ten days. All this happened right around her husband, who was also taken hostage.

Alla and her husband were kidnapped in early July. This happened one morning, when two cars stopped in front of their house, and ten men got out of them. The individuals were seeking information about their son, who worked for Ukraine’s internal security service. They also wanted details about her and her husband’s work, because they were employed by the gas company in the region.

“You will not get out of here alive”

With their heads covered with bags, Alla and her husband were handcuffed and put in the trunk of the car. The two woke up in a warehouse.

“We’re going to beat you to death! You’re not going to get out of here alive.

Either accept our rules and admit you live in Russia, or you will disappear. No one will ever find you”the Russian soldiers told them.

An hour later, six men returned to the warehouse, put the bag back on the woman’s head and took her to another nearby building. There, the individuals asked him to undress. When she refused, they forcibly undressed her, placed her on a table and began to touch her all over. All the while, the individuals were laughing, she told The Washington Post.

“Oh, you’re Ukrainian! Do you know what we do to Ukrainian women and mothers of security officers? We tie them up naked in the main square and send pictures of them to our sons so they can see what we can do to their parents”the Russians told him.

“You didn’t undress? You think you can tell us no?”

Then Alla was told what she had to do. She was threatened by the commander in the area that she would be beaten if she was going to disobey.

When men came into the shed, she had to be naked from the waist down and stand with her back to them.

“What do you mean, you didn’t undress? You think you can tell us no?”the woman was told when she objected.

“I started crying and screaming, but he took my clothes off and asked his soldiers who would rape me first”Alla testified.

For three days, the commander forcibly touched her and forced her to perform oral sex. During this time, her husband was in a nearby garage. Alla could hear him shouting as the soldiers beat him.

“At one point, I heard the commander tell my husband that he raped me and that we both liked it”Alla said.

One day, through a hole in the wall, she saw the men bringing her husband back to the garage. The man had been beaten so badly that he could barely stand.

“I was determined to kill myself”

At some point, Alla could no longer bear the torture to which the Russians subjected her: “I was determined to kill myself. There were some beams inside the shed and I had a bra on, so I thought I’d hang myself. It didn’t work. I started crying. I was crying all the time. They heard me crying and came back and started harassing me again”.

The woman’s nightmare continued. Among other things, the Russians applied electric shocks to his legs.

“They took me to the torture chamber, put a gas mask on my face, pinned me to the wall, then I felt something grab my legs. They were electric shocks. I fell to the floor, shaking all over. I can’t describe your pain”she said.

Abandoned on the side of a road

After ten days of torture, Alla and her husband were blindfolded and thrown by the Russians by the side of a road. For a short time, the two hid in a gas station, then fled through Russia, Belarus and Poland until they reached an area of ​​Ukraine where there were no invaders.

Because of the repeated assaults she suffered, Alla needed gynecological treatment.

Last month, after Ukrainian forces liberated Izium, the woman and her husband returned to their hometown. Also, their son has returned home.