He worked in Warsaw, went to Russian captivity. “She took away live meat from my bones”
Magdalena Rigamonti: You said: “Ruskij, war rifle, Idi na c ** j?” [Rosyjski okręcie wojenny, idź w c**j].
Władysław Zadorin: I can't talk about it. One of our colleagues is still in Russian captivity. I will tell you how the war will end.
They tortured mentally and physically. Every day, beating, rubber sticks, digging, breaking bottles on the head, choking, sticking rods under the nails. Rape. Some of my colleagues castrated. But you know, hunger was the worst.
Worse. I lost 60 kg. We got three slices of bread a day. We learned to eat snails, mice, toilet paper. Hunger is something terrible. My grandmother survived great hunger in Ukraine.
It was in the 1930s.
Then the Russians wanted to starve the Ukrainians. In all penalty colonies in which I was, they also starved us. The Russians know that starvation is a powerful tool.
I was in seven penalty colonies. The longest three months in one. They tried to erase traces behind us. The idea was not to be found, we were not told who was where. After all, Russia does not confirm that our prisoners are in their camps, it does not confirm that it tortures us, that they are shooting prisoners, that Ukrainian prisoners get a life sentence, that there are full -size concentration camps in Russia.
The red cross has access to these places?
For two and a half years of captivity I have never met any representative of the Red Cross or other organization. There are, of course, show places in Russia, Belarus and Chechnya. There, the boys even get champagne. Some even have TVs. There they have more or less normal conditions. And there they only beat them when nobody sees. All to show how Russia treats Ukrainian prisoners well.
“Until now I feel the smell of human burned meat”
You beat you every day.
At least twice a day. In the morning and evening. Often, when we were led to interrogation, and then at the interrogation and after interrogation. I was all in bruises of different colors. Bruises depended on the strength with which we were hit and on the time when the blood froze. In addition, raising the same as the same as the cattle kills. They put these stun guns into various holes … Until now I feel the smell of human burned meat. On the interrogations, they connected us to the power supply.
Is forgotten about pain?
Yes. You only think about surviving to withstand it. But all this pain is written in my body. In Russia, the same thing happens that happened during the Second World War in concentration camps. There are only gas chambers and crematoria. There is not yet. Even enemies do not wish what we experienced.
I know people who survived concentration camps during the Second World War. Marian Turski, Auschwitz prisoner told me that every day in Auschwitz was happiest because he survived him.
The happiest moments in captivity were when we went to sleep. During the day there was a tension that they would come and the beating would start.
What happens in your head when you say this?
It's hard for me. I dream of nightmares. Sometimes I wake up and it turns out that I start singing the Russian anthem. I don't control it. It's like an unconditional reflex. There were days when after a dozen or so hours with a break to beat, they told us to sing their anthem. They also told us to speak Russian. If the accent was angry, if he didn't like it, then beating.
Attempts were made to be different from the first days of captivity. They taught us their history, ordered Russian songs to sing, learn their poems by heart. And shout that we love Russia.
You shouted: “I love Russia”?
I screamed. We all shouted. If you don't scream, they start to bully you. They looked after, checked. If someone did not scream, he went to the isolation.
The limits of human strength. “I came to a cell covered with black rubber”
Did you hit?
Yes. But not for not shouting, that I love Russia. One day I couldn't stand physically and mentally, I wanted to break free, I shouted that I wanted to go to my family, home, I went to the supervisor, knocked him to the ground. He ran a second and it was after me. They undressed me naked and threw me into a rubber isolation.
Is it a Karcer, a single cell?
It is a room two by two meters, total darkness, walls covered with black rubber. The ceiling, walls, the floor everything was rubber.
Why this rubber?
In order not to kill yourself, if you were to throw yourself on the walls so as not to hurt yourself so that you could not die.
In such a rubber cell you want to die?
Yes, even more than outside. This is also a torture tool. In this cell I hated the Russians even more. We had boys among us who shouted, threw ourselves. At that time, they were made of sedatives. They were like vegetables, they looked in one place and only breathed. I sat in such isolates in various places in total seven months.
You see that I am a young man, but I barely walk physically. They struck three vertebrae with a hammer. My feet and toes are in a terrible condition. My shoe size is 45, they gave me 41 and told me to walk. The fingers began to rot.
Do you feel that life before you?
Once a woman told me that I could choose if I want to live on. I want. Many of my colleagues failed to survive. I know that Ukraine will flourish and will be free, independent and in its borders.
Only men tortured?
No, there was also an old lady, a sadist doctor.
Such a Soviet man. She wanted us to fall in love with the Soviet Union. She wanted to cut the tendons in the legs so that we could not walk. She had such plans. She broke away live meat from my bones. I dripped with blood. When she did this, her colleagues stood around us and laughed.
Did you have support in your colleagues, did you have support in yourself?
We talked to each other about cars, about everything we did in free life. There were farmers, businessmen and IT specialists among us, there was even a representative of the Ukrainian authorities. One boy told us about planting plants, about fertilizers, another taught us English. I told my colleagues about Poland because I lived in Warsaw for a year and a half. I explained what documents are needed to work legally.
“Hunger is stronger than everything”
Did you feel that you were a community?
This is a brotherhood. Blood brotherhood. Attempts were made to break up and sometimes we succeeded, there were those who could not stand and go to cooperation. For a slice of bread. Hunger is stronger than everything. Instinct can win over ideals.
Was there Russian agents among you?
Yes, in every place where I was. Such a man has always been seeking these weaker psychologically among us. He promised that if he cooperates, he would come home. I was offered a Russian passport twice. I refused twice because I knew I had my family, my country and I don't want to reveal what is most important to me.
Your mother got information that you are dead, that you are gone.
Twice. At the beginning, the full -size invasion was chaos. Nobody knew what was going on. On February 25, 2022, she came to my mother that I was dead. Our President Zelanski said that everyone was killed on the island of snakes. He did not know that there were 80 people there, that not only the border guard, but also maritime infantry. It wasn't until February 26 that Russian television channels showed photos of how we were taken from our Ukrainian ship to Ukrainian Crimea. My brother saw this recording, he saw me alive. He calls his mother and screams: “Bublik is alive! Bublik is alive!” Bublik is my military nickname, but they also say to me at home.
You risen for your family.
I risen. Then I was buried for the second time when one of my colleagues returned from captivity. He met with my mother and said he had heard that he could not stand the interrogation.
Ukrainian prisoners returned to their country
You were released, mentioned for Russian prisoners.
It all started on January 1, 2024. We celebrated, we got 50 ml more tea. Then the door to the cell opened and I heard my name. I felt sick. The heart rate jumped. I started to shake. The supervisor asked what the size of the clothes I was. I wore L and I said that before captivity. On January 3, I was put on a balaclava on my head, they stuck my eyes with tape so that I would not see what was happening around me. And they put me on the bus and my colleagues. It was in the morning, we drove a long time. The exchange only took place at seven in the evening.
What's in the heart?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing?
I felt nothing. Neither joy nor anger. Only after a few months did I return to a normal life.
What will you do when you meet one of your torturers?
First of all, I'm human.
We had one supervisor in captivity, which he gave me and my colleagues after sugar and said: “God protect you.” He was the only one who showed human feelings. You know, this candy gives hope and faith in humanity. Although, I think there are no good Russians. A good Russian is a dead Russian. Everyone is the same to me and everyone has been on what is happening in Ukraine, to war crimes, torture, to the fact that all world conventions have been broken. After all, they could do in Moscow or St. Petersburg a Maidan as we did in Kiev.
I look at your eyes all the time, try to find some emotions in them, but they are like a fog.
Someone told me that I was looking like thousands of years ahead. In captivity, I learned not to show emotions, because there was a punishment for every emotion. And now, although I have a hurricane in my head, I learned to control my emotions.
