Kherson lives as a ghost town after Russian vacancy 2:35
(CNN) --
Outside a Russian detention center in Kherson, days after the city's liberation, Ihor, 29, continues to tremble as he remembers what he endured inside.
"I was here for 11 days and during all that time I heard screaming from the basement," said Ihor, who asked CNN not to reveal his last name for protection.
"They pricked me in the legs with a stun gun, they use it as a welcome. One of them asked why they had brought me and two others began to hit me in the ribs."
"They tortured people, they beat them with sticks on their arms and legs, with batons, they even hooked them to batteries and electrocuted them or drowned them with water," he added.
Ihor said he was stabbed in the legs with a taser at a Russian detention center in Kherson.
(Credit: Vasco Cotovio/CNN)
Kherson was the first major city and the only regional capital that Russian troops managed to occupy since the beginning of the invasion.
Moscow's armies seized the city on March 2, 2022 and held it for several months before being forced to withdraw in early November, following a months-long offensive by Ukrainian forces.
ANALYSIS |
A bitter harvest of freedom and victory in Kherson from the Russian bombardment
The detention center where Ihor was held was part of a network of at least 20 facilities that Ukrainian and international lawyers say were part of a calculated Russian strategy to extinguish Ukrainian identity.
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"These detention centers are linked to each other, they follow a very similar, if not identical, way of operating," Wayne Jordash, head of the Mobile Justice Team, a collective of international investigators supporting the Ukrainian Attorney General's Office, told CNN.
The investigation found that the Russian forces followed a very specific plan in various occupied areas, with clear guidelines pointing to the general plan of Moscow's occupation of Ukraine.
"The first stage, essentially, is to round up and, in many cases, kill a category of people labeled 'leaders,' meaning those who might physically resist the occupation, but also those who might culturally resist it." Jordash explained.
"The second stage is a kind of filtering process in which the population that remains outside the detention centers is subjected to constant surveillance and filtering, so that anyone suspected of being related to the 'leaders' or of having participated in the organization of any type of resistance, is also identified and either expelled to Russia or detained in detention centers and tortured".
The Ukrainian flag hangs above a detention center used by Russian forces to hold and torture Ukrainian soldiers, dissidents and supporters.
(Credit: Vasco Cotovio/CNN)
"Glory to Ukraine" currently reads at the entrance to a detention center used by Russian forces to hold and torture Ukrainian soldiers, dissidents and supporters.
(Credit: Vasco Cotovio/CNN)
Jordash claimed that these methods were used not only in Kherson, but also in other areas occupied by Russian forces, such as the Kiev suburbs of Bucha and Borodianka.
However, he added, the prolonged occupation of Kherson allowed Russian forces to go even further.
"The third stage (is) the extinction of the permanent identity," he said.
This can include removing the Ukrainian curriculum from schools and confiscating items deemed pro-Ukrainian, such as flags or T-shirts in the country's colors.
"Basically, the population is locked up to remove all traces of Ukrainian identity," she explained.
Ihor's account of the torture he was subjected to while in detention is consistent with the findings of the Mobile Justice Team and the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office.
The type of behavior he said he was forced to engage in is also consistent with the general efforts to eradicate Ukrainian identity described by Jordash.
"They forced us to learn the Russian anthem. If you wanted a cigarette or candy you had to sing their anthem," Ihor said when he took CNN to the center where he was held on November 23, 2022. "When they opened the door for you you had to shout: 'Glory to Russia! Glory to Putin! Glory to Shoigu!'
Sergei Shoigu is the Russian Defense Minister.
"They beat us if we didn't do this," Ihor added.
Archie, who also did not want his last name disclosed for security reasons, said he was tortured at the center.
(Credit: Vasco Cotovio/CNN)
Ihor's account of the torture he was subjected to while in detention is consistent with the findings of the Mobile Justice Team and the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office.
(Credit: Vasco Cotovio/CNN)
He was not the only one.
Another detainee CNN spoke to, Archie, who also did not want his last name disclosed for security reasons, said he was tortured at the same facility.
"I was beaten, electrocuted, kicked and hit with batons," Archie, 20, recalled.
"I can't say they starved me, but they didn't give me much to eat."
Archie said that he was lucky to be released after nine days and after being forced to record a video in which he said that he had agreed to work with the Russian occupiers.
Ukrainian and international investigators also said they have uncovered financial links connecting these detention centers to the Russian state.
"Those detention centers have financial ties to the Russian state," Jordash said, citing documents discovered by investigators.
"These financial documents show that the civil administration is being financed from Russia and the civil administration is financing the detention centers, so you have very clear patterns and very clear links."
CNN has not been able to independently review the documents cited by the investigation.
Jordash said these are only the preliminary results of the investigation, explaining that more evidence of Russian war crimes is still being discovered and prosecuted.
He also said that the newly released findings are a useful indicator of what is happening in the territories currently occupied by Russia, or what would have happened if Moscow had managed to fully seize Ukraine.
Former detainees in liberated Kherson allege Russian brutality and torture during occupation
"For me, the interesting thing about Kherson is that you really see the microcosm of the overall criminal plan, what would have happened with (the rest of) Ukraine," he explained.
"What horrifies me, as much as torture, is to think about what would have happened if Russia had managed to occupy vast parts of Ukraine."
For Jordash, further Russian occupation would have led to an "unprecedented" number of arrests, as well as cases of torture and murder.
"This criminal plan involving the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity, at its core, is seen to be moving into a more final, destructive phase, which seems to suggest that, absent success in the original plan, the plan becomes one of physical destruction, more deaths, more destruction, and potentially genocidal intent," he said.
CNN has contacted the Russian government for comment on the allegations made by the Ukrainian and international investigators, but has not yet received a response.
Russia has repeatedly denied any and all accusations that it committed war crimes during what it calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine.
Despite Moscow's denials, CNN teams on the ground have witnessed the brutal results of Russia's occupation of not only Kherson, but also places like Bucha, Irpin and Borodianka, uncovering evidence of torture and killings. indiscriminate attacks on ordinary civilians.
In January, Human Rights Watch accused Moscow of a "litany of violations of international humanitarian law," and earlier in the week UN Secretary General António Guterres said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine had triggered "the most massive violations of the human rights that we are living (today)".
"It has unleashed widespread death, destruction and displacement," Guterres continued.
CNN's Sam Kiley, Pete Rudden, Olha Konovalova and Allegra Goodwin contributed to this report.
War in UkraineKhersonTorture