Voices from liberated Kherson region: civilian captives, torture chambers in schools and Russian marauders
“February 24 came as a shock to us. But it was the same shock as in 2014”
The village of Lyubymivka is located in the Beryslav district of Kherson region. Only 25 km away from the front line across the Dnipro River (as of January 2024). When Russian troops arrived here in March 2022, they thought it was a city because of how well-maintained and modern it was.
“Of course, February 24 was a shock to us. But it was the same shock as in 2014, when Donetsk and Luhansk were ‘burning.’ We understood: something terrible was happening. But we fully realized and felt it after March 10, when the occupiers entered our village,” begins Tetiana Veresyuk, the accountant of the local school.
Before the war, 167 children from surrounding villages attended Lyubymivka’s comprehensive school. They traveled to school by the school bus.
On the morning of February 24, the school’s director, Aliona Gergel, called an acquaintance who was a policeman to understand how serious the military situation was in the region. Upon hearing that it was very serious, they decided to switch to online learning.
“Only technical staff and teachers came to school. We prepared shelters so that people from the village could hide there from shelling. We have a large basement that runs under the entire building. We stocked up on water, arranged beds for the children. Later, more than a hundred villagers of all ages took shelter here,” says the school principal, who lives in the neighboring village of Trudoliubivka.
The day of the occupation for Lyubymivka started the same as before. But everything changed after 3 p.m., when Russian military vehicles passed through the edge of the village…
“Occupiers shelled the village and blamed it on the Ukrainian Armed Forces”
On March 10, Russian tanks, APCs, and other equipment stayed overnight behind the village. The next morning, the occupiers shelled Lyubymivka for the first time. Then they entered the village and told the locals that it was done by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“Later, we saw how the Russians repeatedly drove out of the village, deployed tanks, mortars, and fired at Lyubymivka. And then they blamed our people for these shelling incidents. There are many witnesses to this,” says Tetiana Veresyuk.
From March 11 to March 14, villagers were forbidden from leaving their yards. Most likely, during those days, the main enemy forces and equipment arrived in Lyubymivka. Then, for three days, people were given a ‘green corridor.’ They were only allowed to go towards the occupied coastal villages, Kherson, and Crimea. Those who dared to go to the free Novovorontsovka were threatened with being shot in the back. Then, out of 1,500 people in the village, only 375 remained. Among those who left was Tetiana Veresyuk. With her family, they settled in Mykhailivka, which was under ‘quiet’ occupation, 37 km away from the woman’s home.
In Lyubymivka, the occupiers initially settled in farm buildings: workshops, pigsties, and machinery sheds. At first, they only looted the destroyed houses left by the owners. And later, says Tetiana, they came up with a new tactic: to shoot at wealthy estates, thus forcing people to request evacuation. After the departure of the owners, these houses were also looted.
“During the 7 months of occupation, there were 4–5 rotations of Russians in the village. It looked like raids by robbers. After the third wave, there were no valuable items left in the village. Once, people heard one occupant complaining to another: he promised his wife to bring a freezer, but there was no such thing in the village anymore. He was very upset about it,” recalls Tetiana.
Due to shelling in Lyubymivka, 10 people of different ages died. Eight of them were buried in their own yards because the occupiers only allowed two hours for this. According to Tetiana, there was no transportation for the people anymore. Therefore, there was not enough time to transport and bury the deceased.
“In captivity, we were constantly interrogated about how we prepared for the war”
Russian soldiers took civilians, both men and women, from Lyubymivka and surrounding villages as prisoners. Some were held captive for months, others for just a few hours. But the most brutal were the Russian National Guard troops.
“Many so-called DPR members were stationed at checkpoints and in villages. Some of them warned us: the Russian National Guard would raid, hide women, girls, and young men… I know of six people from Lyubymivka who were taken captive. In our school, the captives were usually held for up to two days, then released or transported to the school in the village of Bilyaivka. There was a real torture chamber,” shares Tetiana Veresyuk.
From March 31, 2022, the occupiers were supposed to close off Lyubymivka for entry and exit. To get their belongings, Tetiana and her husband’s nephew went home. And on their way to Mykhailivka, at the Osokorivsky checkpoint, Russian soldiers took them captive. It happened around 11 o’clock.
They took away people’s documents, phones, blindfolded them, put them in an APC, and drove them somewhere. Since Tetiana knew the local roads, she guessed it was the Khreshchenivska school. People were kept there until 8 p.m.
“In captivity, we were constantly interrogated about how we prepared for the war. The commander of several of our villages, ‘Vostok’, was particularly meticulous. He called himself either Serhiy Volodymyrovych or Volodymyr Serhiyovych. He was from Donetsk, he knew Ukrainian. He asked about ATO participants, the Armed Forces, families of soldiers who went to war. We said we didn’t know anything because they themselves banned movement around the village… In general, Russian soldiers constantly said terrible things to us. They were awful words, they poured out hatred… But I still don’t understand what it was caused by,” reflects Tetiana.
The woman and her relative were lucky: despite strong psychological pressure, they were not physically tortured. But there were people in the community who suffered torture. Two boys from the neighboring Trudolyubivka were in captivity twice. They didn’t share details with the villagers, just said that ‘it was everything there.’ After the second time, one of the boys committed suicide.
They sent us home with the expectation that we would be shot at the first checkpoint
At 8 p.m. on March 31, Tetiana and her relative were taken somewhere again. After removing the blindfolds, they saw the same Osokorivsky checkpoint, their car. The curfew began, during which movement was prohibited. But the captives were ordered to go home. They were not given back their documents and phones; they could retrieve them only in two days. They weren’t even issued a pass, as was usually done in such situations. They simply wished them, “drive quietly.” But to get to Mykhailivka, Tetiana and her relative had to pass three enemy checkpoints.
“At the first one, near Shevchenkivka, a young soldier was very surprised that we had no passes. And the senior officer nearby said, ‘Don’t you understand why they let them go? They sent them home with the expectation that they would be shot at the first checkpoint because they’re traveling during curfew without anything.’ We persuaded those soldiers to let us pass. We also passed the second checkpoint, near the village of Zolota Balka. There we were warned to drive slowly because near Mykhailivka, there is a soldier who ‘loses control,’ he shoots at people,” recalls Tetiana with concern.
And indeed, they were almost killed there. People barely managed to get out of the car just before reaching the checkpoint. The crazed occupant shouted that they were traveling during curfew, that he would kill them. Then the chief of that post saved Tetiana and her relative. After arguing with the crazed comrade, he sat in the car with the people and escorted them to the turn to Mykhailivka…
Recovering from what they experienced, Tetiana Veresyuk did not even stop working during the occupation. She says she searched for the internet: sometimes it caught near the Dnipro, sometimes in the attic, and even in straw bales. She managed her Lyubymivka school, as well as another one in a neighboring village and Mykhailivka because the accountants couldn’t work there. When she moved to Kryvyi Rih, she left only her Lyubymivka school behind,” says the accountant.
From a top-rated school, the occupiers made a headquarters, ammunition depots, and storages for loot.
The Lyubymivka school was built in 1973. According to the rankings, it was the second-best in the district. Thanks to participation in the New Ukrainian School program, in recent years, classrooms have been modernized, equipment has been purchased. In particular, chemistry, mathematics, and biology classrooms were updated. They acquired 5 multimedia boards, laptops, printers, laminators, televisions, a 3-D printer, and set up an inclusive room… The school created a modern space where children felt comfortable learning and spending time.
But at the end of April 2022, comfort came to an end: the occupiers burst into the school. They turned the modern educational institution into a headquarters, ammunition depots, and storages for looted goods, a temporary prison for civilian captives. And they expelled the locals from the basement and hid there themselves. To have quick access to shelter, they tore up the floor on the first floor. A sniper was constantly on duty on the roof, shooting at the legs of those who approached the school.
The school’s windows were barricaded with sandbags filled right in the courtyard. In the principal’s office, they set up a toilet: they tore off the boards and used the hole as an outhouse. The biology classroom was used by the Russian military as a firing range.
The school was shelled three times. Two were in June, hitting the gymnasium and the dining hall. The last hit was on September 23, 2022, causing the most damage.
“Shelling was the agony of the Russians. They often went out of the village and fired at it to discredit the Ukrainian Armed Forces. And these were the last days before liberation… When the teachers managed to enter the school, they were shocked. There were a lot of shell casings lying around, the Russians left banners. Ammo crates were on the first floor, in the workshops. They looted everything: equipment, even took the carpentry machines from the workshop. In place of the TVs, we saw inscriptions: ‘There was a TV here.’ There was a stench everywhere. Only one printer remained from the equipment, but they soiled it too: they left their excrement there…” – says director Aliona Hergel with disgust.
