Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Video has emerged of mobilised Russian soldiers imprisoned in an apparent FSB torture facility for those who are refusing to fight. 230 men are said to be currently imprisoned in the "Concentration Rehabilitation Centre of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation." ⬇️

2/ Since at least as early as November 2023, there have been persistent reports of Russian 'refuseniks' being imprisoned and tortured in the basement of the House of Culture (Soviet-era cultural centre) in the village of Zaitseve in Ukraine's occupied Luhansk region.

3/ The video shows dozens of men imprisoned in near-darkness, illuminated only by a single lightbulb and a hand light. They lie on the floor or sit on fixed chairs, likely brought down from the House of Culture's upper floors. The narrator says between 221-230 men are present.

4/ The narrator calls the facility the "Concentration Rehabilitation Centre of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation", which he says is used for "fighters allegedly brought in for rehabilitation after combat operations." He gives a sardonic description of their conditions.

5/ "We sleep here, it's very comfortable, it's warm," says the narrator. He comments that men lying on the floor "are trying on sheets of chipboard." "Super hyper anti-Soviet!" says another man. "The music here is garbage." A littered side room is likely used as an open toilet.

6/ The narrator is vague about the exact number of men in the facility; "it's not a court of law," as he notes, "here everything is absolutely in the wind."

He is likely referring to men periodically being taken out and tortured by the FSB in the upper floors of the building.

7/ According to accounts from other soldiers, men are brought to Zaitseve from detention facilities operated by military prosecutors in nearby Troitske and Rozsypne, where political officers try to pressure or persuade refuseniks to return to frontline duties.

8/ Those who still refuse are apparently taken to Zaitseve to be 'worked on' by the FSB. Dmitry Karpov, a Russian soldier later captured by the Ukrainians, says he was imprisoned, tortured with stun guns and starved for 15 days in November 2022, before being dumped elsewhere.

9/ One soldier who was imprisoned in Zaitseve in November was able to text his wife (some men appear to have managed to keep their phones with them):

"My beloved, we are sitting in the basement, our food and water has been restricted."

10/ "They don’t even let you go to the toilet, they are forcibly trying to send us to the front. They don’t conduct an investigation, they don’t take us to a pre-trial detention center, they say we will be taken out at gunpoint to go to the front without weapons."

11/ "Perhaps I'll see you [again]. In which case, goodbye. I love you all, I'm tired of being silent. [Colonels] Rumyantsev and Doroshenko are to blame for everything."

12/ Colonel Vladimir Vitalievich Rumyantsev is the Deputy Commander for Military-Political Work (i.e. chief political officer) of the Russian Army's 1st Tank Army of the Western Military District. He's responsible for morale in the 1st Tank Army.

13/ "Doroshenko" is likely to be Colonel Evgeny Vladimirovich Doroshenko, commander of the 47th tank division of the 1st tank army. It's likely that Rumyantsev is directly responsible for organising the torture of the soldiers, while Doroshenko has overall command responsibility.

14/ The wife who received that message subsequently wrote an appeal to the Russian army informing them of the illegal treatment of her husband and his comrades, but it did no good.

15/ "After we wrote appeals to the military unit that they were being kept in the basement, they were ransacked and all their remaining phones were taken away. They sit in their own shit and are starved. And afterwards [the commanders] say 'go and fight'."

14/ According to the wife, some of the men being held at Zaitseve were subsequently made to dig trenches and sleep in the open air in the fields, during the Ukrainian winter.

"They should be sent warm clothes," the wife said. "But we don't know how." /end

Sources:
🔹 t.me/astrapress/163…
🔹 t.me/astrapress/302…
🔹 russian-torturers.com/ru/profile/1446
🔹 russian-torturers.com/ru/profile/1671