Photo: SERGEY BOBOK / AFP / Getty Images
A Ukrainian civilian testified that the Russian military tortured him, shot him and then buried him alive, but managed to escape by playing dead.
Mykola Kulichenko, from 33 years old, was kidnapped along with his two brothers, Yevhen and Dmytro, three and a half weeks after the war in Ukraine began.
Mykola Kulichenko struggles to recount a tale he shouldn’t be alive to tell. But this Ukrainian man believes he was allowed to cheat death so he might speak for all those who he cannot. https://t.co/xE1H1ujSmG—CNN (@CNN) May 17, 2022
The three were taken in for questioning once the Russians found their grandfather’s military medals and a military bag belonging to Yevhen, aged 30, who had been a paratrooper.
“They beat me all over my body with a metal bar and put the barrel of a gun in my mouth,” he told CNN.
After being beaten until he passed out, they fwere taken to a desolate expanse of land in the northern Chernihiv region of Ukraine.
There they were blindfolded and forced to kneel while they dug their graves.
Mykola said he heard a shot and Dmytro from 33 years, fell dead to the ground and then Yevhen was shot.
When Vladimir Putin’s troops shot at him, The bullet entered his cheek and exited through his right ear.
The soldiers kicked the bodies of the brothers into the pit, covered them with earth and left. He knew that his only hope of survival was to pretend to be dead.
“I was having a hard time breathing, since Dima (Dmytro) was lying on top of me, but using my arms and knees I was able to push my older brother to the side of the well and then I got out. It’s like being resurrected”.
He staggered through the fields in the dark to the nearest house, where a woman took him in and nursed him overnight.
Then, Mykola was able to return to her sister, who had been anxiously waiting for days at her father’s house.
“I was lucky… and now I have to continue living”, he said.
“This story should be heard by everyone, not only in Ukraine, but all over the world because this guy of things are happening and this is only one in a billion”.
Mykola says that he finally properly buried his brothers on 21 in April, one month after his execution.
The Chernihiv region prosecutor’s office has started an investigation for war crimes which has now been opened.
The investigators have confirmed that the brothers had their hands tied hands and legs and had been blindfolded. Throughout Ukraine, so far more than 11,600 alleged crimes of war.
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