The prisoner in question, Anna Vorosheva–a 45-year-old Ukrainian entrepreneur, was detained and brought to a notoriously gruesome Russian prison camp known as Olenivka after being intercepted at a checkpoint.
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Soldiers were being burned alive
The concentration camp is ran by the pro-Russian Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) in eastern Ukraine where Vorosheva spent a total 100 days in captivity. She claims to have witnessed soldiers being tortured daily, fed minimally and even burned alive, describing the entire experience as 'absolute evil'. Giving her first hand account to The Observer, she explained:
Russia didn’t want them to stay alive. I’m sure some of those ‘killed’ in the explosion were already corpses. It was a convenient way of accounting for the fact they had been tortured to death.
And added:
Male prisoners were regularly removed from their cells, beaten, then locked up again. “We heard their cries. They played loud music to cover the screams. Torture happened all the time. Investigators would joke about it and ask inmates, ‘What happened to your face?’ The soldier would reply, ‘I fell over’, and they would laugh.
'It was a demonstration of power'
The entrepreneur was brought to the prison after being accused of terrorism while she was trying to deliver humanitarian supplies to Mariupol. She was brought in in mid-March and stayed until early July. Her account has also been corroborated by other survivors of the concentration camp who have recounted similar atrocities. She also shared:
It was a demonstration of power. The prisoners understood that anything could happen to them, that they might easily be killed. A small number of the Azov guys were captured before the mass surrender in May.
And added:
We were frequently called Nazis and terrorists. One of the women in my cell was an Azovstal medic. She was pregnant. I asked if I could give her my food ration. I was told, ‘No, she’s a killer’. The only question they ever asked me was, ‘Do you know any Azov soldiers?'.
Vorosheva is now recovering in France.
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