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A MUM was captured and tortured by Putin’s brainwashed henchmen during Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
Held in an underground cellar for days, separated from her family and brutally interrogated, Lyudmila Veselko spoke to The Sun about her horrific ordeal.
Lyudmila Veselko, who was captured and tortured by Russians, with her husband DmitryLyudmila Veselko
Lyudmila with her daughter and grandson – her daughter was pregnant during the horrific ordeal in February 2022Lyudmila Veselko
Lyudmila Veselko
Birds-eye view of a destroyed area in Mariupol in Ukraine, weeks after the 2022 invasion
A man rides his bike past flames and smoke rising from a fire following a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 2022
Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu meet soldiers during a visit at a military training centre, October, 2022Lyudmila Veselko, 45, said “brainwashed” Russian troops claimed she was a dangerous sniper and spent days trying to squeeze information from her.
She was stopped by Vlad’s men – who found shell-casings from her husband’s hunting trips in her car, and then became convinced she was a sniper.
Putin’s brainwashed zombie soldiers “psychologically tormented” her, threatened her, examined her body and kept her in freezing cold isolation.
Her desperate husband Dmitry spent days negotiating to see her freed – after fearing she was one of those killed by Russians and left to be eaten by dogs.
The pair were eventually reunited, but to this day Lyudmila and her family suffer from the emotional fallout and trauma of what the Russians did to her.
Lyudmila had moved from Kyiv with her husband just a few years before Russia‘s invasion for a “quieter life” in a small village called Volodymyrivka, outside the city.
On the day of the invasion, February 24, she returned home from a night shift and was forced to hide out in a bunker with other villagers as Russian troops took over their homes.
Her husband had been working as a driver in Kyiv was trapped by Russians in Zdvyzhivka, on the outskirts of the city, as he tried to get back to the village.
They didn’t show their faces. They wore balaclavas, and they examined me. They looked at my tattoos
Lyudmila VeselkoTheir children, a grown-up son and daughter who was six months pregnant at the time, had moved to Western Ukraine in the weeks leading up to the war.
Lyudmila’s husband rang her that night and vowed “Even if I have to walk, I will walk to you.
“Just stay where you are”.
But the last time they would communicate for several agonising weeks would be on Sunday morning, February 27.
In the following days, Putin’s henchmen brutalised the village where the couple lived – with roads left littered with cars holding the bodies of Ukrainians they had murdered.
I realised that it was some kind of brainwashing, real brainwashing
Lyudmila VeselkoLyudmila’s neighbour was shot dead leaving his house for food, and others stumbled across a pilot’s body in the grim wreckage of a downed Ukrainian plane.
The town’s electricity station was blown up and Russians blocked their phone signal in the days following February 24 – leaving residents freezing and alone in darkness.
When Lyudmila’s phone died not long after, she lost all hope of trying to get in touch with her husband or children.
The couple’s garden in Volodymyrivka, where they had moved for a quieter life outside the cityLyudmila Veselko
Lyudmila and Dmitry’s home in Volodymyrivka, near KyivLyudmila Veselko
A rescue worker stands at the site of a military strike on a shopping center in Kyiv, March 2022Two-week blackout
Lyudmila desperately tried to get in touch with her husband and said she spent several weeks of sleepless nights worrying if he was dead or alive.
Eventually, she managed to charge her phone using a car battery, and said she even bravely went out at night to try and find a phone signal.
People were afraid of leaving the village because everybody talked about so many cars being stopped and people shot dead in the cars
Lyudmila Veselko“I wasn’t afraid of anything at that time because I was so focused on finding out whether my family was alive, whether my husband was OK,” she told The Sun.
After several days she managed to get in touch with a family friend, who had gotten through to her husband and told her he was alive.
But he couldn’t get past the Russian checkpoints to reach their village.
Lyudmila was finally able to speak to him directly on March 8.
Her husband, a 43-year-old former soldier who hunted in his free time, collected empty shell casings from the forest near their village and kept different types of guns in their home.
During their brief period of communication, he told her to hide all of the weapons in their home, and she did, but she forgot to check the car.
A ‘safe passage’
A few weeks after the invasion, Lyudmila saw an opportunity to go and find him – and heard rumours there was going to be a “green corridor” for civilians opened on March 12.
“I thought to myself that probably I would take money, food or jewellery, everything. Anything valuable I’ve got. And maybe I could trade it in for my husband,” Lyudmila said.
Lyudmila packed up all her valuables and wrapped her hand in white fabric to serve as a white flag once she reached the Russian checkpoint.
She told The Sun that the Russians discovered one of the shell casings with USA markings on it while checking her car, and assumed she was a sniper.
If we hadn’t invaded your country, then you would have invaded our country, and you would have started killing us
Russian soldierAnd in the freezing weather she was dressed head to toe in her husband’s black clothing including heavy boots and a hood.
“Maybe it’s a coincidence, but at that time, they received some information that about 60 sniper women were sent to that area.
“The whole situation made them think that I was a sniper. I tried to talk some sense into them, I told them, do you think I would be so stupid?”
Three days of torture
Hours later the Russian troops had handcuffed Ludmyla and dragged her to the cellar of a school in a nearby village, Katiuzhanka.
She told The Sun that for three gruelling days the Russian troops psychologically tortured her, kept her isolated and beat a man being held alongside her.
One of the Russians interrogating Lyudmila told her: “If we hadn’t invaded your country, then you would have invaded our country, and you would have started killing us.
“I realised that it was some kind of brainwashing, real brainwashing,” she said.
Lyudmila told them: “Just imagine, how could we attack your country? How could we invade your country?
“We are a small country, and you are a very big country.”
They even threatened to go and start shooting all village residents
“They didn’t show their faces. They wore balaclavas, and they examined me. They looked at my tattoos,” the distraught mum explained.
“And there was a red light on the end of this wire, and they started showing these wires to me and saying, ‘now we can start torturing you, we can use physical torture’.”
More than eight different people were sent to interrogate her, and three or four of them she explained were snipers with balaclavas covering their faces.
They kept pushing her to tell them where her weapons were, and shone bright lights into her eyes every 15 minutes.
And she was forced to wear heavy handcuffs constantly, even when she went to the bathroom.
Putin’s cronies threatened to murder her neighbours if she didn’t give them the information they wanted.
She said: “They even threatened to go and start shooting all village residents around if I don’t tell them.”
EPA
Reuters
Civilians trapped in Mariupol try to escape through Russian-controlled checkpoints days before the invasionEarly atrocities by Russia in Ukraine - Bucha & Irpin massacres
DURING the early days of the war in Ukraine Putin's troops swooped into Ukrainian cities, massacring, raping and brutalising civilians.
As time went on more information about their sick war crimes spread around the world, sparking international calls for justice.
From 27 February 2022 to 28 March, Putin’s troops brutalised the cities of Irpin and Bucha in hopes of surrounding and taking Kyiv.
Horrific videos, photo, reports and eyewitness accounts emerged from Bucha on April 1 after Russian forces surrendered and withdrew.
Almost 500 bodies of Ukrainians were found in the city including civilians and children with many mutilated or burnt.
Harrowing images showed people forced to line up with their hands bound behind their backs as Russians shot them at close range.
And reports surfaced of a basement used as a torture chamber.
Some girls as young as fourteen reported being raped by Putin’s soldiers.
Chilling images also surfaced of the mass graves dug for the victims of the Bucha massacre.
Nearly 70% of Irpin was destroyed in March 2022, as Russians disguised themselves as Ukrainian soldiers and swarmed the city.
Almost 300 Ukrainians were killed as Russia bombarded them with missiles, ground troops and tanks.
Reports also came out of Irpin that Ukrainian women were being raped by Russian soldiers.
Thousands were forced to flee for their lives over broken bridges in frigid temperatures.
Ukraine fought back bravely with fewer men and resources, and were able to eventually push Russia from both cities.
Zelesnky’s government believes Russia may have also abducted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children in the last two years – a sick ploy they dub “evacuation”.
The international community has made repeated calls to hold Russia accountable for war crimes committed in the name of Putin’s bloodthirsty land grab.
And the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Mad Vlad himself over violations of the Geneva Convention – although Russia of course denies any war crimes.
Near-miss
Heartbreakingly, on the day Lyudmila was captured – Dmitry was making his way through forests and roads to get to her.
Just two hours after she was dragged to the cellar, Dmitry reached Katiuzhanka before going home to find an empty house and his wife missing.
After weeks of separation they had ended up only 18 miles apart – with her trapped in the horror cellar, and him sheltering in the local church.
For five days, nobody could be there and take the bodies and remove them from the cars. Already dogs had started eating these bodies
Lyudmila VeselkoLyudmila said of the cruel twist of fate: “I went to find him, and he went to find me… We were about 300 metres from each other.
“The next day, after he slept the night in the church building, he went to our house and the house was locked. And he saw that there wasn’t a car there.
“He went to the neighbours to find out what had happened to me. They told him that I had left, ‘to look for you’.
“He was very upset, he said, ‘why didn’t you make her stay?'”
Lyudmila told The Sun that he was deeply disturbed by the news after seeing the road to Katiuzhanka covered in cars filled with bodies.
In a horrifying retelling, she said: “For five days, the Russians actually didn’t allow… Nobody could be there and take the bodies and remove them from the cars.
“Already dogs, you know, started eating these bodies.”
An emotional reunion
When the Russians finally started letting people check the cars for their loved ones to bury them, Dmitry and his friend set out on a grim search for Lyudmila.
They reached the checkpoint where she had been taken and he was told to go to the Russian HQ in Katiuzhanka.
The same Russian soldier who took her to the cellar was there and told him that his wife was a sniper, and that she had been taken in for interrogation.
He had to convince them that she wasn’t a threat, and that they had simply stumbled across his old empty casings.
But they forced him to go home, find his hunting gear, and bring it back to corroborate the story, only he had told Lyudmila to hide it.
He had to go back and beg them to let him visit her, so he could ask where she’d hidden it all.
And the agonising process of this back and forth was only made worse by the 8pm curfew which saw him forced to wait even longer on day one after his searches didn’t turn anything up at their house.
Lyudmila said he asked them: “Just show me to my wife, and she will tell me where she hid it, and then I will be able to bring it to her and show it to you.
“So they dragged me out of the cellar,” she explained.
“They took the blindfold off and I could see my husband, behind the glass. He was standing with his, hands up.
“I said just three words to my husband. It was a barn, a wood shed and a pantry.”
Dmitry rushed back home, but it was already too late that day. The curfew started again.
When he was finally able, on day three, to present his hunting weapons to the Russians – they were forced to concede that it was just a civilian weapon.
“My husband kind of traded me in for this weapon and he proved yes, that, I wasn’t a sniper.
“He just told me, please, keep silent. Don’t say anything.”
After several days of gruelling psychological torment – Lyudmila was freed and she and her husband were properly reunited.
Where are they now?
A YEAR after Lyudmila's ordeal, she moved to Kyiv with her daughter's family as they were afraid of invasion by Belarus in their village
Stark photographs from the time show the grandmother, her daughter and infant grandson huddled on a mattress in the corridor of their building.
And one snap shows the grandmother pushing him in a buggy surrounded by scorched buildings.
Amid “daily alarms and shelling” in Kyiv, debris was falling around them and they wanted to be ready for a quick escape.
Now, the couple live in a different country, still near their daughter who suffered health problems after the birth of her baby boy in June 2022.
She told The Sun she thinks the stress on their family contributed to her daughter’s ill health.
Lyudmila struggles with her mental health two years on from the invasion, and became visibly distressed as she told her harrowing story.
She is now working with the Museum of Civilian Voices by the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation in Kyiv – an organisation committed to telling the stories of those Ukrainians affected by the war.
In a chilling reflection on the war, she said: “It’s really important to talk about it.
“We shouldn’t, we must not go through all these terrible, harrowing things. There is hardly any family left who has not been, actually, impacted or affected by this war.
“There is a war going on in Ukraine, there are terrible things going on that the world should know about it.
“We should move earth and heaven to ensure that nobody else will ever suffer from the war, that nobody else will be invaded by anyone.”
Alamy
Lyudmila and her baby grandson in Kyiv, 2023
Ukrainian soldiers collect bodies of civilians killed by the Russian forces close to Kyiv, Ukraine, March 2022
Kyiv residents flee following Russian strikes on the day of the invasion, February 24, 2022
English (US)