An excerpt from "The Torture Camp on Paradise Street", which I wrote about yesterday.

The book continues to come to life.

7 years have passed since that night: Valera’s handcuffs were finally removed, and the “god” from the basement is now in prison:
1/8 "As soon as we sat down, the door opened and the guards shoved into the cell the man whom we had heard screaming so terribly upstairs. His hands were tied with duct tape. He stumbled and fell to his knees, quivering like a spring that had been squeezed and then let go.
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"The Torture Camp on Paradise Street":

"We are all lab mice. We are fed, shocked with electric currents, and sometimes taken to bathe. Each man finds his own way to Mouseville, the basement of the Security Ministry of the DPR. My route here took three years to travel.
1/4 Then again, the click of handcuffs being locked on my wrists in downtown Donetsk only confirmed the old adage: you may think everything is fine, yet all the while someone is digging a grave for you. Like all rodents, we really like sugar. Here, in the basement,
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While the Ukrainian trains arrive strictly on time even under the bombardment, I have never seen it worse than @DB_Presse. Yesterday I went by train from Copenhagen to Hamburg which resulted in me being forced to spend the night on the street together with other passengers. 1/5 The train was late for 1.5 hour to depart from Copenhagen. Then, at the German border at Padborg, the train simply stopped moving on and left more than hundred people - many of whom were women with children - on the street in the middle of the night.
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In this photo is my book about the Izolyatsia concentration camp in which I spent 28 months of my life. In the background is the actual walking yard of Izolyatsia, where I used to walk. At that time, the only things I could see from that yard...
1/5 ...were desperation and the tops of poplar trees on the other side of the fence. I certainly could not see a book that would be translated into 12 languages and become a bestseller in several countries.
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By supplying weapons to Ukraine, the West has the right to know what Ukraine means by winning the war. Yesterday in Hamburg at the Körber-Stiftung I tried to give a clear answer to this question. And it is contained in one word - Crimea.
1/4 President Zelensky speaks of the victory as a restoration of the 1991 borders. But this does not answer the question - what to do with Russia's mobilization reserve and Putin's regime, which will continue to send tens of thousands of Russians to their deaths?
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Couple of words to @mich261213
Today in Ukraine people will not talk to you if you think that only Putin is to blame for the war. They will not listen to you if you offer them the Russian liberals’ favorite formulation: “not everything is so simple” “there are good Russians” 1/9 For Ukrainians, everything is crystal clear: Russia is to blame - all of Russia, without a list of "good people". Putin? - Of course, there is nothing to discuss here. His entourage and the military elite of the Russian Federation? - Yes, they deserve only hatred. 2/9

This is Denis Kustov, the man I helped to escape from Izolyatsia. Denis came from Russia to the Donbas "to protect the Russians," as he himself then believed. I met him in the basement, in a cell next to mine, in May 2017, where he had been imprisoned for about 200 days.
1/5 The Russians tortured him with electricity and water, beat him, treated him like an animal just like the rest of us, “Nazis,” took away his Russian passport - and forgot about him. Just left him to rot in the dark.
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This photo was taken in 2018, during my captivity. Sitting across from me is Sladkov, one of Russian propagandists who called themselves journalists for Russia24 TV channel. I was brought to him from Izolyatsia for an "interview."
1/3 They brought me there with a sack over my head and in handcuffs, and the same way back. I was warned that if I refused to speak or say what they wanted me to say, I should better remember that I had a mother, and there were still empty cells in Izolyatsia.
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After my release, one of the most frequently asked questions was "Is it possible to negotiate with Russia?" I always said "No," and that Russia itself would show why not, which is what happened on February 24th. Now the same with the West.
1/4 You shouldn't waste your energy on those who say, "Give away part of Ukraine and everything will end." A peaceful evening in Rome or in a café in Budapest may suggest such a thing. Russia will show them too that it's not just about Ukraine.
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According to the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine, there is growing opposition to Vladimir Putin among political and business circles advocating for his urgent removal from power and restoration of economic and diplomatic ties with the West.
1/5 At the same time, the political elite of the Russian Federation rely on the head of the FSB Alexander Bortnikov, who has already fell into Putin's disfavor after the enormous miscalculations in the so-called military operation in Ukraine.
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So, I was one of those people convinced that Russia would not dare to launch a full-scale invasion in Ukraine. Until February 24th.
1/10 I already experienced being held captivе in Donbass. Basically, I spent 2.5 years in the Russian concentration camp "Izolyatsia". I was tortured with electroshock as a Ukrainian spy; I saw women being walked through the hall where men were nailed alive in coffins.
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