“I was in captivity for 48 days. They taped my eyes, beat me from all sides, and fired shots above my head”

48 days in captivity. Interrogations, beating out the confessions, tortures – such was the payback for his desire to keep order in his native city in wartime. In the first days of the war, Volodymyr Ivanchenko was among the first who joint the municipal patrol. They patrolled the neighborhood unarmed. They maintained order, caught looters, fixed break-ins and thefts… During the occupation, Volodymyr Ivanchenko was arrested at one of the checkpoints in front of his 13-year-old son and mother. Volodymyr is a single father. For all 48 days of his captivity, his son was waiting for the return of his dearest person. The boy and his grandmother used to sit on a porch, hoping to hear the familiar footsteps...

On February 24, I was in Kherson, at home, watching the news on YouTube, and then I heard that a war had started. Nothing was happening, we did not see or hear anything in the city center, it was all quiet.

There were just some distant explosions. Nothing special was happening. I went to the military enlistment office the next day, but all the military enlistment offices were closed. I tried to join the Area Defense Forces, but everything was closed as well. The next day they started enlisting members for a municipal patrol. I was among the first who joined the municipal patrol. I was a member of the municipal patrol. I remained a member of the municipal patrol until April 26. On that day, our town mayor, Ihor Kolykhaiev, was removed from his post. The occupiers who removed him disbanded us as well.

What were we doing until April 26? We responded to calls about break-ins into private houses and offices. Our local looters were breaking in, people who didn’t understand. We recorded all such facts and sent such reports to Kyiv. It happened on June 26.

I was driving (we have the Ostrov neighborhood) from the center. There was a checkpoint. My mother, my child, and I were going to see our relatives who lived in the Ostrov neighborhood when we came to that checkpoint. They stopped the minibus, by which we were traveling, and ordered everyone to get out.

They were constantly checking documents and making people show their tattoos and phones. First, everything was as usual. And then, one of them exclaimed, “Oh, we have caught one!”

While they were checking my phone, they subdued me right in front of the bus and started beating me right there, and dragged me behind the checkpoint by my arms and legs. There used to have an industrial enterprise there, and they pulled me into the courtyard.

Then they taped my eyes shut. They kept beating me. Then they put me up against the wall and started shooting over my head. Then they started shooting right next to my ear. I was so nervous that I didn’t even twitch. “Oh, he’s so trained, he’s not afraid of the shots.”

I was so shocked that I was incapable of being afraid of shots. They threw me into the car and took me somewhere. They brought me to some building and continued to beat me up in some room. They were grilling me, “Are you a partisan or not? Who are your accomplices?”

They brought me there, to the glass factory, where they started beating me first, and then they started using electricity to torture me. They tortured me with electricity for quite a long time. Once they realized that I would not give them any information, they threw me in a cell. For two weeks, I couldn’t even get up to lie on the bunk bed.

That bench was near the toilet, and I had to go there all the time. At least that’s how it was, the water, the toilet was in this cell. Then they took me out and tried to beat out the confession. I said, “I don’t know anything.” They made me write some testimonies exactly as told. It was impossible to refuse to write because once you stop writing, they would beat you with sticks and fists. They hit me in the face with the buttstock. I had a rotting wound on one of my cheeks.

They tried to make me confess that I was a partisan. “You’re a partisan, turn in your accomplices, that’s all.” They kept threatening me that I had only two options: I could go either to the Kremlin or to the DPR. They didn’t say when I would be released. That was the only way. They intimidated me all the time, and they beat me so badly that I fainted during each interrogation. I was interrogated five times. They caught almost all of us, the members of the municipal patrol, and dragged us all up there. We were from the Center group, and we did not have any firearms or the like as a matter of principle. They gave us buckwheat that was terribly salty once a day. It was salty beyond belief… At least there was water in the tap, so we could drink as much as we wanted. In the evening, we had tea without any sugar. Hot tea, if you can call it tea, because it was just some slightly tinted water.

At first, they allowed people to pass immersion heaters and sugar to the detainees, but then they banned it and took away absolutely everything. I was transferred to another cell, from the fifth cell to the first one. People there had immersion heaters and tea, as they were allowed to receive parcels. They came and took everything from us, including the medicines that were in such parcels. Once, we did not have anything to eat for three days. There were quite famous people in the cell with me. They were the mayor of Novotroitsk Zvarovskyi and political scientist Maksimenko from Kherson. They were there too. One of them had problems with the heart. He got no medicines or anything. As it turned out, they arrested Kolykhaiev on the same day when I was arrested. Then, he… Later, we accidentally saw that Kolykhaiev was held in the cell right across the corridor.

Because everybody did that. Later, I asked the guys who got out, all of them. They were all forced to sign this document for cooperation, absolutely all of them. Otherwise they would not let them out. I was there until August 8. Once I was released, I could start to breathe, and I was finally free. There was a shop, and girls who worked there, the salesgirls, said, “Have they released you?” They said, “They just let  you go?” I said, “Yeah.” They ran out, got some water, and gave me some money. “Where do you live?” I said, “Downtown.” They gave me money to pay a bus fare. I asked the guys around, and they told me that these girls helped a lot of people out that way, saved them, so people could get home. I am truly grateful to these girls. I’m a single dad, I have a son at home who is 14 years old, and he was 13 then. He was crying.

He lived with my mother, his grandmother. They told me that when I was taken away, they heard all the shots and all the screaming. They heard it all. They drove them away from the gate with rifle butts. Then, an Uzbek or Buryat came out and gave my son some juice, saying, “Don’t worry, he’ll be interrogated, and he’ll be home in the evening.” The evening dragged on a bit. They sat on the porch until two in the morning and waited. They would sit on the porch every night, waiting for my return.

I have pictures of me covered in bruises. They kept me until my bruises healed, and released me only after my bruises faded. Some of the bruises were still visible. I spent almost a month at home because I couldn’t move properly.

Then I went to our hospital, an outpatient clinic. Our doctor left, and I thought that I would ask another doctor to record my trauma. I did not say anything. The girl, who replaced our doctor, was wearing the Freedom key charm almost in the open. I had a frank conversation with her. She recorded everything in accordance with a protocol. I had broken ribs, and my liver was enlarged. I took pills to restore my liver because my liver was badly bruised after all that beating. My kidneys were bruised too. I had it all recorded. The thing is that I had to hide my photos and medical records. I hid them in different places, in one house or another.

I had to wait until people return to get them back. I have been able to collect my documents just recently, and I will go to the police to file a report and give them these documents.