Prisoners from Mariupol Being Tortured/Electrocuted/Strangled by Russians

Steelworks prisoners from Mariupol 'are being tortured with pliers, electrocuted and strangled' after being captured by Russian forces

• The French and German presidents urged Putin to return 2,500 prisoners of war
• Azov Battalion soldiers defended Mariupol steelworks for weeks despite barrage
• Now they're reportedly being tortured with pliers and electric shocks by captors

European leaders have urged Vladimir Putin to release Azov prisoners amid reports that they have been tortured with ‘special cruelty’.

French president Emmanuel Macron and his German counterpart Olaf Scholz demanded the safe return of the 2,500 Azov fighters over the weekend.

The calls by European leaders come as Ukrainian soldiers returned in prisoner swaps with Russia said the brave defenders of Mariupol had been singled out as having endured especially brutal treatment.

A report compiled from interviews with the prisoners said the Azov fighters had been beaten, tortured with pliers, electrocuted and strangled. Other Ukrainian soldiers have allegedly been injected with unknown drugs, humiliated and forced to record confessions in which they sing Russia’s national anthem and plead forgiveness.

Footage has also emerged of some of the defenders of the steelworks being asked why they ‘indoctrinated’ the local population.

Mr Putin was accused by experts of inflicting ‘unspeakable suffering’ on Ukrainians in the east and ‘demanding horrible sacrifices’ of his own people.

The Ukrainian military hinted at high levels of casualties sustained by Moscow, claiming that civilians were no longer being admitted to hospitals in Russia-annexed Crimea as beds were needed by injured troops.

An adviser to the mayor of the decimated port city Mariupol reported that one of the city's supermarkets close to the Azovstal steel plant is being used as a mass morgue because there are too many bodies to bury after three months of near constant bombardment. 

Petr Andryushchenko said Russian troops were dumping civilian bodies in the Shchirii Kum supermarket and leaving them to rot.

'In the premises of the supermarket the Russians set up a morgue. Literally. The Russians are bringing the bodies of the dead here.

'They just dump them like garbage. There is a catastrophic shortage of people to bury and operate even makeshift mortuaries, to such an extent that a separate recruitment campaign of pathologists was launched in Moscow.'

Ukrainian officials gathering evidence of Russian war crimes believe they will uncover more than 100,000 cases before their investigations are over.

The country has registered a total of 14,000 war crimes, according to the prosecutor general of Ukraine Iryna Venediktova.

She predicts there will be at least 1,000 defendants when the cases finally proceed to court.

'Today we have near 14,000 cases, only about war crimes, and near 6,000 cases which are connected,' Venediktova told the BBC.

'It means that we have huge number of precedents and every day we have more and more: it's [an] extra 100, [an] extra 200, it depends on the day.'

In Kharkiv, where Venediktova's team is gathering evidence, investigators discovered three burnt corpses in a basement and evidence of arson.

What appears to be a family - a man, woman and child - were tortured and shot before they were covered in car tyres and set on fire.

Iryna Venediktova is the prosecutor general of Ukraine, the first woman to hold the office. She believes they will uncover more than 100,000 cases before their investigations are over, with at least 1,000 defendants when the cases finally proceed

The team is also investigating reports that a Russian soldier raped a woman in the village of Little Rogan.

Who is Iryna Venediktova?

Iryna Venediktova is the prosecutor general of Ukraine, the first woman to hold the office.

Venediktova, a 43-year-old former law professor, has said her stated mission is to make Putin and his forces 'pay for what they have done'.

'I protect the public interest of Ukrainian citizens. And now I see that I can’t protect these dead kids,' she told AP. 'And for me it’s pain.'

Venediktova has stationed prosecutors at refugee centers across the country and at border crossings, attempting to collect evidence.

Her war crimes unit has around 50 dedicated prosecutors - the identity of which are not being disclosed publicly.

The investigation must be held to international standards, or else perpetrators of war crimes could go free when the time comes to seek justice. 

Prosecutors interview Ukrainian refugees, looking for statements on war crimes committed throughout the country.

Those interviewed are often asked to retrieve items which could prove vital to the prosecution in a court of law - such as a refugee having to retrieve a piece of mortal shell that destroyed their home.

Her office cooperates closely with prosecutors from the International Criminal Court and nearly a dozen countries.

Poland, Germany, France and Lithuania have all of which have opened criminal investigations into atrocities in Ukraine.

Huge parts of the country have been turned into a potential crime scene. 

She had been hiding from the Russians in a school when the military officer broke inside and ordered her into a classroom, where he raped her for hours. Her family managed to escape while she was tortured.

'New horrors are being discovered every day. The scale of the savagery and barbaric behaviour is unheard of,' a source in Venediktova's office told The Sun.

 'The focus is building as much evidence together as possible to make sure the monsters responsible for these evil crimes get justice.'

Ukraine has already begun prosecuting captured Russian soldiers responsible for war crimes.

Two captured Russian soldiers pleaded guilty on Thursday to shelling a town in eastern Ukraine in the second war crimes trial of the war.

At the trial in the Kotelevska district court in central Ukraine, state prosecutors asked for Alexander Bobikin and Alexander Ivanov to be jailed for 12 years for violating the laws of war.

A defence lawyer asked for leniency, saying the two soldiers had been following orders and repented.

Bobikin and Ivanov, who stood in a reinforced glass box, acknowledged being part of an artillery unit that fired at targets in the Kharkiv region from the Belgorod region in Russia.

The shelling destroyed an educational establishment in the town of Derhachi, the prosecutors said.

The servicemen, described as an artillery driver and a gunner, were captured after crossing the border and continuing the shelling, the prosecutor general's office said.

'I am completely guilty of the crimes of which I am accused. We fired at Ukraine from Russia,' Bobikin told the court in proceedings that were streamed live.

Asking not to be handed the maximum jail term, Ivanov said: 'I repent and ask for a reduction in the sentence.'

The hearing lasted under an hour, with the verdict expected on May 31.

The first Russian suspected of conducting the massacre of civilians in Bucha has also been identified.

Sergey Kolotsey, commander of a Russian National Guard unit, allegedly killed four unarmed men on March 18 and tortured another civilian on March 29, according to the prosecutor general.

Russian tank commander Vadim Shishimarin, 21, pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed Ukrainian civilian in the opening days of the war after being ordered to shoot him.

More than 45 Russian soldiers involved in war crimes have been identified so far, with more expected to follow.

Russian tank commander Vadim Shishimarin, 21, pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed Ukrainian civilian in the opening days of the war after being ordered to shoot him.

The court sentenced Shishimarin to life in prison after he pled guilty to charges of war crimes and murder for killing 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov, who he shot in the head in the northeastern village of Chupakhivka, Sumy region, on February 28 while he was pushing his bicycle along the road. 

More than 45 Russian soldiers involved in war crimes have been identified so far, with more expected to follow.

Venediktova's office has already opened over 8,000 criminal investigations related to the war and identified over 500 suspects, including Russian ministers, military commanders and propagandists.

The United Kingdom's Attorney General hosted a two-day visit of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General.

The visit is part of an of ongoing dialogue between the UK and Ukraine to help Ukraine seek justice for Russia’s atrocities.