SADISTIC Russian troops have committed unspeakable atrocities under the guise of war in Ukraine.
Tales of torture, rape and brainwashing have seeped out since the invasion’s early days and – heartbreakingly – it is sometimes Ukraine’s children who bear their load.
One brave teen has lifted the lid on a blood-drenched torture chamber he endured after being swiped from his family by Russian soldiers.
His story, alongside other war-trodden Ukrainian children, has been retold through a moving new film called Children in the Fire.
The Sun met some of the incredible young survivors featured in the film, who told us it is “so important we share our stories, so people understand what is going on”.
The inspirational youngsters dwell not on themselves but “the other children of Ukraine who are still stuck“.
Vlad
Vladislav Buryak was 16 when he was picked out by Russian soldiers while trying to escape his town of Melitopol and suffered 11 weeks of hell as a prisoner of Putin.
He was held in a police station in Vasylivka, in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia.
Languishing alongside him in the cells were a number of older men who suffered “heavy torture” in front of his eyes.
Vlad said the Russian soldiers would take somebody into the designated torture room three to five times a week.
A variety of barbaric methods were meted out against the prisoners – on top of severe beatings.
Vlad’s Russian guards repurposed field telephones to electrocute the men – often attaching wires to their nipples or genitals.
Even more sadistic, they would sometimes attach needles to the ends of the wires and skewer these under captives’ fingernails, then switch on the current.
Some were also subjected to sexual violence.
Vlad recalls one man who crawled from the torture chamber with four broken ribs having been raped with a mop handle.
The boy mercifully escaped the worst of this violence, but was often made to clean up the traumatising mess left in the torture room.
Once, he was sent in to clean and found a man hanging by his arms from the ceiling, dripping into a bucket full of blood.
Vlad said: “The person had almost no face because it had been so disfigured by torture.”
Another man was thrown in to share Vlad’s cell after being tortured for two whole days.
His genitals had been electrocuted for half an hour straight, and he was now forced to use the toilet every ten minutes.
Scarred by the days of hell, the man made multiple attempts to take his own life.
Vlad said that, as the man sat there dying, he “came closer to him and we talked a little. I didn’t want him to feel alone.”
After the man was taken away, Vlad was forced to clean up the grim mess.
He said: “The walls were completely covered with blood, and it was mixed with urine too.
“The smell and aftertaste lingered for a long time. I could smell it for at least three months after being freed.”
Vlad now lives in Hertfordshire and has become an ambassador for Ukraine‘s stoic children.
He told us: “We have spoken to politicians and parliament, and we tell them all that it’s possible to make change for the other children of Ukraine who are still stuck.
“Everyone can do something to bring about change, however small. Just help any way you can.”
Roman
Roman Oleksiv was just eight when he and his mum were blown up by two Russian missiles landing on a doctor’s surgery in Vinnytsia, July 2022.
He suffered horrifying burns to 45 per cent of his body – most of which were “down to the bone”.
When he awoke from a coma three weeks later, there were casts on all four of his limbs and his head, and he had lost most of his hair.
Roman said: “I knew my mother was dead because I saw her lying down. I saw her hair.”
He was transferred to Dresden, Germany, where he spent a gruelling year undergoing more than 30 rounds of surgery.
Now, Roman is back on his feet and determined not to let his injuries define him.
He continues to play the accordion, and has even picked up a new hobby: ballroom dancing.
Roman said: “I think I will be a musician – why not? Accordion is still good exercise for my fingers.”
He performed last year at the Blackpool Dance Competition with his dance partner Sasha.
The now-11-year-old said: “I’m not afraid of anything. Other than when I hear air raid sirens. But then I just hug my dad.
“You can get through any situation – just never give up.”
Valeriia
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian children have been abducted from their homes and right now are held captive in brutal Russian camps.
In the most severe cases, children have been ripped away from their families and taken deep into Russia, where they are stripped of their identities and forced through a “re-education” programme.
Valeriia Sydorova was 17 when her family was tricked into signing off on Russian soldiers transporting her to a “re-education camp”.
Here, she had Russian propaganda shoved into her face and was told to forget Ukraine.
As her city, Nova Kakhovka, came under attack, families were told their kids must be taken away for their safety.
Soldiers rounded up all the school-age children and demanded their guardians consent to them being taken to Crimea.
It would only be for two weeks, they were told.
Confused and frightened, Valeriia was deposited in a camp of 400 children, which she said was “completely chaotic”.
At first their teachers were there too, but after two weeks the adults were sent back home.
Valeriia remembers: “The camp was like a cage. We were not allowed to leave the grounds.
“Kids kept trying to escape so they doubled the cameras and guards.”
Every day, the children were forced to march around, raise the Russian flags and recite Russian songs.
A recent report by War Child found that over 40 percent of Ukraine’s stolen children are put through a programme of “militarisation”.
Putin has enforced “patriotic education” – a euphemism for grooming children into soldiers – as part of the curriculum.
The report reveals that thousands of Ukrainian children have been forced to dress in uniforms and train with weapons.
They have even been taught how to throw grenades and deploy mines.
Putin’s ‘zombie’ camp plot
by Rebecca Husselbee, Assistant Features Editor
VLADIMIR Putin is using “zombie” camps to brainwash Ukrainian kids in a chilling three-stage plan to replenish his Russian army, a top MP has revealed.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner, said the Russian tyrant is responsible for the “genocide” of Ukrainian children being forcibly deported across the border.
He described the Kremlin’s disturbing three-stage plan to rid the youngsters of their Ukrainian heritage and brainwash them into becoming Russian citizens.
The plan involves placing children in sinister camps where they speak Russian and sing the national anthem before having their official documents altered and being placed in Russian families.
Often the children are told that their loved ones have abandoned them and that they are now part of the Russian Federation.
But Dmytro revealed that children who refuse to accept their Russian captor’s demands are then being tortured in special rooms within the “re-education” camps.
The snatched youngsters are also forced to take part in the Kremlin’s youth military organisations and train with weapons – part of Putin’s scheme to create a new generation of fighters for his dwindling army, the MP warned.
Ukraine says the young hostages are forced to spend days in windowless torture chambers, without food and water, until they surrender and accept that they are now Russian citizens.
Traumatised Ukrainian kids who have been able to make it back home spoke of the horrific conditions while being held at the camps.
They say they were taken to isolation cells, beaten, and forced to watch as their captors burned the Ukraine flag in front of them and sang the patriotic song “Onward, Russia”.
Dmytro told The Sun: “Sometimes after children return, they tell us about torture, even a special place for children who don’t want to use the Russian language.
“Russians even created special camps for these Ukrainian children…they told us it was a special room torture chamber for children.
“If you don’t want to sing the anthem, the Russians hold you in this room without light, without food, without water, for one day even more.
“Next day, they ask, ‘Do you change your mind or not? Are you ready to sing the Russian anthem or not? If not, okay you can stay longer’.”
