Infacet Russia’s business of compelled POW movies
Since his return, Shybalov and Duman relocated from Kyiv to the small city of Mykolaiv in Ukraine’s western Lviv area, the place Duman is from. The couple retains to themselves.
Shybalov had heard about Volodymyr Srebrodolskyy, whose village denied him a remaining resting place on the land the place he was born. It enraged him.
“Russian propaganda — it’s an business,” he stated. “They facilitate this as an business with the wanted quantity of primary uncooked supplies, that are interrogations and interviews with prisoners of struggle.”
All of the previous prisoners Shybalov retains in contact with have needed to movie them, he stated.
“They actually understand media as a weapon, tradition as a weapon, language as a weapon and faith as a weapon,” he stated. “Thus, they deal with it as a correct weapon. They make investments huge sources to supply it. They design refined and good ways the way to use it. And they’ve 1000’s of individuals engaged in it.”
A cell in Donetsk
Volodymyr Srebrodolskyy’s captors positioned him in a detention facility in Chystiakove, a metropolis often known as Torez till 2016, occupied by the Russian military since 2014. Located behind a double fence, the jail complicated was constructed to carry 1,200 prisoners.
Among them was Mykola Shustrov, a military medic captured within the southern metropolis of Mariupol whereas Russia brutally besieged it within the spring of 2022. Shustrov spent almost three years in Russian captivity being moved between holding services.
“They got here to our cell,” Shustrov remembered of 1 jail, “they hung up Putin’s portrait, the anthem of the Russian Federation and informed us to be taught it.”
After forcing the prisoners to be taught the phrases from the anthem lyrics posted within the cell, their captors informed them to sing particular person couplets and questioned them about what number of strains it contained. If they may not reply, the prisoners could be crushed.
By the time he received to Chystiakove, Shustrov’s enamel had been knocked out from repeated beatings and interrogations, and he misplaced plenty of weight due to the meager meals rations.
About a 12 months into his captivity, a video crew arrived. Shustrov and others have been dropped at a room the place one man questioned him whereas one other sat off digicam in a balaclava and army gear. When he entered the room, Shustrov was punched within the intestine. “If you don’t need that repeated,” his captors stated, “reply.”
Shustrov’s interviewers have been searching for compromising data on the Ukrainian military. Shustrov sat on the desk, trying down, stuttering and making an attempt to reply as neutrally as he might. The probability to indicate their households they’re alive was the primary motivation for prisoners to cooperate with the propagandists, Shustrov stated.
“You will say something to indicate your self,” he stated.
Srebrodolskyy arrived in Shustrov’s cell in late 2024, in agony. He was badly crushed after failing to recite the Russian anthem, he informed Shustrov and different cellmates. Srebrodolskyy’s abdomen was swollen and tender from the assault, Shustrov remembered. His medical coaching made it clear how acute the scenario was. “I can’t even drink water,” Srebrodolskyy informed him.
The males requested for a physician, however the guards stated he must wait till morning. Shustrov spent all night time talking with the 55-year-old to distract him from the ache.
“I couldn’t assist him,” Shustrov stated. “In our barracks, all I had was two fingers and chilly water from the faucet. That’s it.”
An ambulance took him away within the morning, however it was too late to save lots of Srebrodolskyy’s life. He was not the primary man Shustrov watched die in captivity.
“He was in jail for the remainder of his life,” Shustrov stated, “and you start to assume, ‘Why am I enduring all of this?’”
Shustrov, who was launched in a February 2025 change, was indignant in regards to the village’s response to Srebrodolskyy’s video. The solely truth to be taken from it, he stated, was that the individual was alive on the time of filming. Nobody can know what the captive endured, he stated.
“You’re a prisoner there,” Shustrov stated. “You’re not an individual.”
