Heartbreaking images.
Released last month, Ukrainian soldier Volodymyr Tsema-Bursov shared photos of his terrible physical development after spending 20 months in captivity in Russia, reports Ukrainian media Svoi City.
Before being captured by Russian forces in April 2022, this 1m91, 95kg amateur musician lived in Mariupol with his wife and young daughter.
A cruise employee, he looked for a job after the Covid-19 pandemic and ended up joining the Ukrainian National Guard orchestra.
He then passed a medical examination making him suitable for entry into the Ukrainian armed forces.
Also read: Prisoner of the Russians for nine months, Pavlo, a 25-year-old Ukrainian soldier, “makes up for lost time”
On the night of February 23, 2022, on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, his commander called him and informed him that he had to go to a barracks near Donetsk, in a non-combatant unit.
After several weeks spent near the bombings, the barracks were surrounded by Russian forces.
Volodymyr attempts to escape but is quickly caught and captured on April 12, 2022, then transferred to an unknown location in Russia.
It is from this date that the ordeal begins.
Cells without windows, hands tied, stale bread, very little water, blows to the kidneys, back, chest, head, arms, legs… all with instruments of torture such as batons, straps with metal inserts or even electroshocks.
“A whole bouquet of diseases”
“Welcome to hell,” Russian guards tell Ukrainian detainees.
The latter were crammed into the cells to such an extent that the floor was not even visible, says Volodymyr Tsema-Bursov, in a moving testimony given to Svoi City.
After twenty months of captivity where the beatings increased, his weight dropped from 95 to 57 kg.
Despite atrocious conditions, this former orchestral artist says he always kept hope.
His resilience finally paid off during a recent prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia.
Returning to Ukraine last month, he is still receiving treatment in one of the medical institutions in the Poltava region.
This is what 20 months of #Russian captivity looks like.
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Freed Ukrainian soldier Volodymyr Tsema-Bursov lost 38 kg of weight in 20 months of captivity and got many diseases after physical abuse and torture and starvation.
pic.twitter.com/Yo0uw6xIeN
— Olena_Wave🇺🇦 (@OlenaWave) February 10, 2024
Unfortunately, he has many after-effects from these months of captivity.
“My health is much worse than I expected.
(…) I have, as they say, a whole bouquet of diseases, including chronic gastritis in the acute stage, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a disease of the human digestive system, chronic prostatitis in remission…” explains Volodymyr.