Thread by @Mylovanov

This a school basement in a Chernihiv village that Russians turned into a concentration camp. I visited it today. And I listened to survivors for hours, shocked, in disbelief. The media narratives do not do the justice to what happened there. 1/

On the first day of occupation, Russians rounded everyone alive and put them in this basement. There were almost 400 people for 170 sq meters. More than 2 people per sq meter. They stayed there for a month. 2/

Russians killed about 10 people on the first day to instill fear. On the walls in the basement there are numbers of people kept in a room. In this one there were 35 people with 8 children. See the sign on the left 3/

The person who showed us the basement - Ivan - he is a survivor. He told us they would let people out of the basement once a day, in the morning, to a toilet. A line would form. Then the Russians would start shooting around people with mortars for entertainment. 4/

There were infants. The youngest was 1.5 month old. The oldest people were in their 80s. People had to carry them in carts to this basement. Everyone who was older than 80 died in the basement during that month. This is the entrance. The sign says: “careful, children!” 5/

There was not enough oxygen in the basement. That’s why elderly died. First, they would go insane. Then, they would scream. And then they would go quite. And then in the morning they would not wake up. And their neighbors simply would carry them out to an oven (kochegarka). 6/

To get oxygen people would get to the walls, closer to the water on them that was dripping down. People felt there was more oxygen there. We talked to survivors. At first they are quiet, but eventually they start talking…telling detailed stories..I have made records…7/

After a while they stop talking and simply thank me for listening. A 76 year old lady told that she feels better now after unloading this on me. She also said she would rather die if she knew what she would have to go through. 8/

I asked people why they think Russians did it. “To use us as a protection against the Ukrainian army” is the only answer I heard. Russians paraded kids in front of the building when Ukrainian drones were nearby. 9/

These people come across differently from people in Kherson. There is a sense of something grim. When I tell them that “at least now it is over” I got the same response “but there are so many people who are still occupied”. And it made me realize a fundamental truth. 10/

That we must liberate all our territories. It because we want our land back but because our citizens are currently under occupation there and are suffering a similar fate. I knew this truth before, but it was abstract, theoretical. Today, I felt it. 11/11