Released Ukrainian prisoner of war reveals torment at the hands of Russians
When Ukrainian marine, Mikhailo Dianov, was released from Russian detention, his photo shocked the world.
His body was emaciated after four months as a prisoner of war.
When I met him, he was unrecognisable from the photos I’d seen of the well-built fighter in Mariupol, Ukraine. His clothes hung from his frail frame. His gaunt face seemed far older than his 42 years.
I had so many questions. Crucially, did you worry you wouldn’t survive?
“We thought about this every day,” Mikhailo tells me. “We first started having those thoughts at the Azovstal steel plant.
“At Azovstal we thought it was the end.”
Ukraine forces Russian troops out of critical town – live updates
Mikhailo was taken following weeks under siege in Mariupol defending the steel works. It was the last corner of the city to fall in May.
He was among 215 recently released in a high-profile prisoner swap with Russia, and spoke exclusively with Sky News about captivity.
“Believe me, after a month of being starved, when you close your eyes, you forget about your family, about your country, about everything. The only thing you think about is food.”
‘They treated us like animals’
Mikhailo lost 40kg (more than six stone) in weight in his four months as a prisoner of war.
“It was impossible to eat. You were given 30 seconds for each meal,” says Mikhailo. “In 30 seconds you had to eat everything you could.
The day of his release
“Bread was deliberately very hard. Guys who had their teeth knocked out couldn’t manage to eat in time.
“It was 30 seconds, and then you had to stop. Then you had to get up straight away and run. It was like that all the time.
“They treated us like animals.”
The meals sound pitiful, and the process of eating utterly humiliating.
This all took place in the Olenivka prison in Russian-controlled Donetsk – a place Mikhailo refers to as a concentration camp.
It clearly seems prisoners of war being held there are being starved deliberately.
Read more:
The fall of Mariupol
Ukrainian prisoners taken from Azovstal
Prisoners were ‘beaten with sticks and given electric shocks’
He describes how they would be thrown in solitary confinement and tortured for picking up a berry from the ground and eating it.
He says they were beaten with sticks, given electric shocks and had needles put under their nails
The layout of the prison has concentration camp connotations, too.
From the air, satellite images reveal identical blocks in a row where prisoners are housed.
Mikahilo says the blocks are designed for 150 people, but he was packed into one with 800 other prisoners.
The conditions were so cramped, his leg muscles wasted and walking is now a challenge. We don’t walk far together and soon find a bench for him to rest.
It is very hard for us to verify what is happening in Olenivka prison due to the lack of access to Russian controlled areas.
We’ve spoken to the partner of another Azovstal fighter who was released in the same prisoner swap. She describes similar conditions and also refers to the place as a concentration camp.
Then there’s Mikhailo’s physical condition, which speaks for itself.
One thing we do know about Olenivka prison is it was bombed in July and more than 50 people were killed. I ask Mikhailo about the attack.
The steel plant was almost completely destroyed
He’d been at a different location at the time, receiving treatment on his arm. He describes a reckless operation carried out with a pair of pliers and no anaesthesia.
Before he was taken prisoner, a photo at Azovstal shows Mikhailo with a bandage on his broken right arm. During his time in captivity, the bone healed in a semicircle due to a lack of medical care.
Then this – the moment he was released.
“We were stripped completely naked. They took off our medical casts, everything. They searched us. And then we had to squat like that for five hours. Without a bench, of course.
“We simply waited. We didn’t know what was going to happen to us,” says Mikhailo.
He has a large graze at the top of his nose. I ask what happened.
“Duct tape,” he replies. “They wrapped tape around my head and pushed their legs into my stomach, so they could make it tighter, and I spent a day, a day and a half like that.”
Relatives and friends of defenders of the Azovstal steel works campaigned for their release
‘A lot of things have lost their value’
He travelled for 36 hours with his eyes taped with no idea where he was going – moved from a bus to an aeroplane to a bus again.
It was only after the tape was finally removed that he realised he was back in Ukraine.
He now needs to gain 20kg before he can have corrective surgery on his arm.
The psychological impact will likely take far longer to treat.
“Everyone is traumatised,” he tells me, “I consider myself to be a mentally strong person, but for me a lot of things have lost their value.”
The picture he’s painted of Russian detention is far worse than many imagined.
Many of the conditions described are against the Geneva Conventions. And thousands more Ukrainian prisoners of war are understood to still be in Olenivka prison.
Subscribe to the Daily podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker
World
‘Almost like a game of target practice’: British surgeon says IDF shooting Gazans at aid points
A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told Sky News that there is “profound malnutrition” among the population – and claims IDF soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “like a game of target practice”.
Dr Nick Maynard spent four weeks working inside Nasser Hospital, where a lack of food has left medics struggling to treat children and toddlers.
The conditions inside the hospital, in the south of the Strip, have been documented in a Sky News report.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Malnourished girl: ‘The war changed me’
Dr Maynard told The World with Yalda Hakim: “I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage – and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed.
“There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital – and there will be many, many more deaths until the Israelis allow proper food to get in there.”
Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
In other developments:
• Israel and the US have recalled their teams from Gaza ceasefire talks
• US envoy Steve Witkoff has accused Hamas “of failing to act in good faith”
• France has announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine
• An influential group of MPs is calling on the UK to “immediately” do the same
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘Starvation used as a weapon’
‘They were shells’
Dr Nick Maynard has been going to Gaza for the past 15 years – and this is his third visit to the territory since the war began.
The British surgeon added that virtually all of the kids in the paediatric unit of Nasser Hospital are being fed with sugar water.
“They’ve got a small amount of formula feed for very small babies, but not enough,” he warned.
Dr Maynard said the lack of aid has also had a huge impact on his colleagues.
“I saw people I’d known for years and I didn’t recognise some of them,” he added. “Two colleagues had lost 20kg and 30kg respectively. They were shells, they’re all hungry.
“They’re going to work every day, then going home to their tents where they have no food.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Ex-Gaza aid worker claims personnel shot at Palestinians
IDF ‘shooting Gazans at aid points’
Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Maynard claimed Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “almost like a game of target practice”.
He has operated on boys as young as 11 who had been “shot at food distribution points” run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“They had gone to get food for their starving families and they were shot,” he said.
“I operated on one 12-year-old boy who died on the operating table because his injuries were so severe.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
Dr Maynard continued: “What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.
“One day they’d be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the abdomen.
“Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so.
“The clustering was far too obvious to be accidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.
“I would never have believed this possible unless I’d witnessed this with my own eyes.”
Palestinians brought to Nasser Hospital after being shot by Israeli forces, according to hospital officials and eyewitnesses. Pic: AP
Sky News has contacted the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
An IDF spokesperson previously told Sky News it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.
“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.
Read more:
Medics at Nasser hospital struggle to feed children
Gaza food situation ‘worst its ever been’
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been managing the supply of aid to Gaza since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade in May.
It has four aid distribution sites, all of which are located in Israeli military zones, with journalists prohibited from entering.
More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the GHF took over, according to the UN.
UNRWA, its relief agency for Gaza, has heavily criticised the scheme.
Commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Just a fraction of the aid trucks needed are making it into the enclave, the UN has said, while multiple aid groups and the World Health Organisation have warned Gazans are facing “mass starvation”.
Mr Lazzarini quoted a colleague on Thursday and said malnourished Palestinians in the Gaza “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”.
Eleven Thai civilians and a soldier have been killed in clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, officials have said, as long-standing tensions in disputed border areas boiled over into open conflict.
Among those killed was an eight-year-old boy, the army said in a statement.
It said most casualties occurred in Si Sa Ket province, where six people were killed after shots were fired at a fuel station.
Smoke and fire in the Kantharalak district in Thailand amid clashes between Thailand and Cambodia. Pic: Army Region 2 via Facebook/Reuters
Another 14 people have been injured in three Thai border provinces.
Thailand’s health minister Somsak Thepsuthin confirmed the fatalities to reporters, adding Cambodia’s actions, including an attack on a hospital, should be considered war crimes.
Both countries accuse one another of starting the military clashes and have downgraded their diplomatic relations in the rapidly escalating dispute. Thailand has also sealed all land border crossings with Cambodia.
Early on Thursday, a Thai F-16 fighter jet bombed targets in Cambodia, according to Thailand’s army.
“We have used air power against military targets as planned,” Thai army deputy spokesperson Richa Suksuwanon said.
Cambodia’s defence ministry said Thai jets had dropped bombs on a road near the ancient Preah Vihear temple, saying it “strongly condemns the reckless and brutal military aggression of the Kingdom of Thailand against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia”.
What has caused Thailand-Cambodia border clashes?
Thai people who fled clashes take shelter in Surin province. Pic: AP
Fighting has taken place in disputed border areas
‘Civilian areas targeted’
Clashes are ongoing in at least six areas along the border, the Thai defence ministry said.
Thailand’s foreign ministry said Cambodian troops fired “heavy artillery” on a Thai military base on Thursday morning and also targeted civilian areas, including a hospital.
“The Royal Thai Government is prepared to intensify our self-defence measures if Cambodia persists in its armed attack and violations upon Thailand’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement.
A livestream video from Thailand’s side showed people, including children and the elderly, running from their homes and hiding in a concrete bunker as explosions sounded.
The clash happened in an area where the ancient Prasat Ta Muen Thom temple stands along the border between Thailand’s Surin province and Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province.
Thai people who fled clashes in Surin province, northeastern Thailand. Pic: AP
‘Conflict not spreading’
Thailand’s acting premier said fighting must first stop before peace talks can start.
Caretaker Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters there had been no declaration of war and conflict was not spreading into more provinces.
He said Cambodia had fired heavy weapons into Thailand without any specific targets, resulting in civilian deaths.
Earlier on Thursday, Cambodia downgraded diplomatic relations with Thailand to their lowest level, expelled the Thai ambassador and recalled all Cambodian staff from its embassy in Bangkok.
The day before, its neighbour withdrew its ambassador and expelled the top Cambodian diplomat in protest after five Thai soldiers were wounded in a land mine blast, one of whom lost part of a leg.
A week earlier, a land mine in a different contested area exploded and wounded three Thai soldiers, including one who lost a foot.
Relations between the southeast Asian neighbours have collapsed after a Cambodian soldier was killed in an armed confrontation in a disputed border area in May.
Read more on Sky News:
UK’s ‘tough choices’
‘Man-made starvation’ in Gaza
Man ‘scarred’ by Trump max security prison
Nationalist passions on both sides have further inflamed the situation, and Thailand’s prime minister was suspended earlier this month as an investigation was opened into possible ethics violations over her handling of the border dispute.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Border disputes are longstanding issues that have caused periodic tensions between the countries. The most prominent and violent conflicts have been around the 1,000-year-old Preah Vihear temple.
In 1962, the International Court of Justice recognised Cambodian sovereignty over the temple area.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike