Thread by @VolodyaTretyak

Ukrainian defender Dmytro Moseichuk spent 24 months in Russian captivity. He endured horrific torture—both psychological and physical. He says Russian prisons are designed to break Ukrainian POWs forever. Please amplify.

1/ "I served in the 63rd brigade. I went at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. It didn’t matter where to go. That’s how I ended up in the 63rd."

2/ "In April 2022, I was on the Mykolaiv direction. The first tasks were to establish ourselves somewhere in the gray zone on the infantry line. Then the infantry went in after us."

3/ "At the beginning, there were very few drones. Back then, they were just ordinary Mavics without any extras. We experimented, climbed trees. Our record was 8 km beyond the line. Those who understand drones usually don’t believe it."

4/ "Later we were on the islands on the Dnipro near Kherson. There were observation posts there. We came under small arms fire on a boat. I was wounded there. The commander was killed. It was December, freezing. I crawled towards our side after we docked.

5/ I got hit in the night and in the leg, the bone was broken."

6/ "Crawling was very difficult. I had to drop something. I dropped the drone but kept the rifle. I was losing consciousness, but I already saw where our positions should be. It seemed about 200 meters away."

7/ "And then suddenly I was surrounded by an enemy group. It turned out they immediately went on reconnaissance after us. I didn’t even hear them coming, and they didn’t hear me, so they just stumbled upon me."

8/ "They gave me help using my own first aid kit, interrogated me. And on stretchers took me to their base. I was already blacking out from blood loss little by little. It was some kind of cottage there."

9/ "They lift me up and say “Glory to Ukraine.” I answered, and he says to me 'Glory forever. My father taught me to answer like this.' He was from Crimea. There were many Crimeans there who served in the Russian army."

10/ "I was only there for one night. They treated me normally. No one beat me. Back then, I even had optimism that maybe they would treat me well. At that time I didn’t understand that there could be such things as beatings or torture."

11/ "Then they handed me over to the FSB. Interrogated again. They called a doctor who said I needed to be taken to a hospital, otherwise I would die. My bone was shattered, and the bullet was stuck in my leg."

12/ "It was an ordinary hospital. Kherson region. Traumatology. My FSB guards watched me from the corridor while I stood in line. Some man asked where I was from. I said the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He said, “Well, come on, we’re rooting for you.”

13/ "When I was already able to walk on crutches, they sent me to Crimea. There I saw guys from Azovstal, who were in Crimea after Taganrog. One was very emaciated. Another’s leg was rotting from hematomas. I had only seen such things in horror films. You could see the tendons."

14/ "Those who had been in Crimea from the beginning were in normal condition. But those who were transferred from Taganrog — it was hard to even look at them. They were skeletons."

15/ "I was there for 13 days. And they sent us to Volgograd region, the city of Kamysh. Pre-trial detention center number 2. Intake is a serious thing. 12 hours of interrogations, beatings, stun guns nonstop. I was on crutches with a broken leg, but it didn’t matter to them."

16/ "For example, they ask: who is Zelensky? “Well, the president.” And immediately the blows rained down. Everywhere."

17/ "During the day, the main task was not to attract attention. A camera was hanging over you. Any extra movements, looking somewhere unnecessarily. They’d take you out and beat you."

18/ "They made you sing stupid songs, chants. I think they tried to do everything so that we would never be able to fight again. To break us physically and psychologically."

19/ "At first, they gave one loaf of bread for 5 men. Then one loaf for 8 men. A food portion was about 1 small cup. And also it was winter, very cold, plus they forced us to do exercises after beatings."

20/ "The lice were terrible. They crawled all over you, all over the body. If you tried to crush them, they saw it on the camera, came in and beat you. You had to just sit straight and no other way."

21/ "Every time the cell door opened — it was a quest. Usually not a good one. Because when the cell opened, they always beat you."

22/ "There were 3 floors. At first I was on the first floor and it was terribly cold. In 2024 they transferred me higher up and it was warmer there. Food got a little better. They gave one book per cell."

23/ "Once in 2 years the Red Cross came. They hid me in another cell so I didn’t see them. But some changes appeared. They started to beat us less."

24/ "If you sit straight all day, you try to imagine something. Think and imagine. You had to distract yourself somehow. When books appeared, at least I could switch to something."

25/ "In 2024 they stopped beating with a stun gun. Before that, when we heard the stun gun turn on in the corridor… immediately panic, sweaty hands."

26/ "It was because we are Ukrainians. They were simply killing us. Only inside the cell they didn’t beat us. Everywhere else, always."

27/ "Once a week, there was a bathhouse. But you washed for about 30 seconds. The rest of the time they just beat you. However they wanted, with whatever they wanted. Stun gun anywhere, batons."

28/ "They also used a device 'tapik'. Two wires connected to the hands or to the genitals, and just tortured, twisted."

29/ "I understood that it hurt. But I had to hold on just to survive. At one point I couldn’t even climb onto the second tier of the bunk, I was so beaten. Sometimes I thought I might not make it. I knew people who simply died in captivity."

30/ "There it seemed like another life no longer existed. Family, parents, children. I kept repeating that in my head. Maybe I wouldn’t have survived without them. I tried not to give up and to encourage others."

31/ "There was no communication with the outside world at all. We didn’t understand anything.

32/ ...Sometimes there were periods when they beat us very badly, like animals, and we understood that probably something was happening at the front they didn’t like.Even though they told us half of Ukraine was already gone, 300,000 prisoners."

33/ "A comrade received a letter. Supposedly from his wife. Like some representative came and brought a parcel and a letter. He wasn’t allowed to finish reading that letter or receive the parcel."

34/ EXCHANGE

"A couple of days before the exchange, they set us aside and didn’t touch us. We thought maybe some inspection was coming."

35/ "Until the very end I didn’t believe, so as not to give myself false hope, that it was an exchange — even when they announced it. I thought it was another lie and they were taking us somewhere else...

36/ Only when the plane landed and I saw an ambulance with Belarusian license plates did I realize it was an exchange."

37/ "For me the biggest dream was to see the Ukrainian flag. Upon arrival, they gave us flags and blue-and-yellow bracelets made by children. That was enough for happiness. I cried from joy."

38/ "The first call to my wife. I couldn’t speak. I said that everything was fine and I had returned. And she couldn’t speak either. We just cried."

39/ "On the way we were given their dry rations. We just took the sugar and poured it into our mouths. We were just ecstatic from sugar. We hadn’t felt that taste for years. 21st century."

40/ "Then hospital. Washed in warm water. Dressed normally. I was very skinny and sick. Barely walked in the hospital like an old man. I am still being treated. That health is gone already."

41/ "The brutality I saw. I really couldn’t imagine that such a thing still exists. In the 21st century. That such people exist. That a person works like this: tortures all day and then in the evening goes to his family, to his children. And the next day again...

42/ For a year, two, three. What kind of person must you be? For them it’s normal. They have no dissonance that maybe it’s wrong or unnecessary."

43/ "My family is very important. And it only became stronger. My sister did everything she could. Protests, interviews, meetings, letters to different institutions, even to the Pope. My family did everything."

44/ "The hardest part was my family’s uncertainty. They feared I might return only as a body. My kids asked, 'Where is daddy?' My wife told them, 'He’s fighting, at war.' 'Why doesn’t he call?' — 'Because he has no possibility.'"

45/ Thank you for reading. Please support the current fundraiser.

https://twitter.com/1082338523309633537/status/1958203617288061419