Overview
- Three former Ukrainian prisoners of war — Huan Leyva-García, Gennadiy Kharchenko and Ruslan Vasylovych Odaiskyi — are giving public testimony in Dresden on February 27–28 under a project organized by MEP Oliver Schenk with support from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.
- They report pervasive torture in Russian-controlled detention, including electric shocks with tasers during brief forced showers, deliberate starvation, exposure to cold, rotten or withheld food and sustained humiliation.
- Kharchenko survived the July 29, 2022 explosions at the Olenivka prison, an incident the UN human rights office found was caused by munitions fired from Russian-controlled territory rather than Ukrainian HIMARS rockets.
- Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters reports 6,422 people have been freed through negotiated exchanges since 2022, while the OSCE estimates roughly 6,300 remain in Russian custody.
- The men describe severe lasting trauma and medical needs, with some planning to rejoin their units and others seeking to rebuild civilian lives.