Surviving Ukrainian prisoners of war have given sickening accounts of their torture at the hands of “Evil Doctor”, a notorious Russian doctor at the heart of Vladimir Putin’s modern gulag system.
Operating from Russian Penitentiary Institution No. 10 in Mordovia, southeast of Moscow, Ilya Sorokin, 35, was accused of torturing at least 29 Ukrainian prisoners of war in absentia by Ukraine’s SBU security services.
A former prisoner of war described how the sadistic doctor ordered them to strip naked before subjecting them to cruel and degrading acts.
“There were 30 of us, all naked, in a room. He asked who had asthma, tuberculosis or anything else,” Serhii Doroshenko, a Ukrainian military doctor, told The Times of London.
“But if, God forbid, you spoke about any illness, then he would torture you personally, in addition to the torture inflicted by the prison staff, because you were doing extra work for him,” Doroshenko added, speaking from his hospital bed, where he is still recovering from his injuries.
Doroshenko, captured during a battle for the eastern city of Mariupol in 2022, spent more than 1,000 days in Russian captivity before being released last year in a prisoner exchange.
“He kicked us and hit us with a baton and a stun gun. He knows where it hurts the most, and he deliberately hits you right there,” Doroshenko said.
He described how Sorokin allegedly reserved his worst punishments for captured Ukrainian medical personnel, due to unproven claims that they conducted medical experiments on Russian troops.
“This myth was spread by Russian propaganda. They told us that in Mariupol, doctors conducted biological experiments on Russian soldiers and colonels,” Doroshenko said.
“That they had cut off their testicles. That’s bullshit, of course, but we were beaten for it just as much as the gunners and snipers,” he added.
Other POWs described how Sorokin, also nicknamed Dr. Shocker, wore a medical mask and sometimes a hood with a skull during torture.
“You can’t call him a human being. He started waving his stun gun and shocked me several times,” Ukrainian naval officer Pavlo Afisov told RFE/RL.
“He said we were ‘stinking khokhkly (a Russian insult to Ukrainians)’ and that we didn’t deserve decent treatment,” Afisov added.
Sorokin is also accused of using a stun gun on Ukrainian prisoners of war if they did not shout “Glory to Russian medicine!” » or if they sought help for heart pain, festering sores or even a toothache.
Ukrainian detainees were ordered to address Sorokin with their heads bowed and their hands behind their backs, even though some caught a glimpse of his face, Doroshenko said.
“To raise your head was to die, or to receive so many blows that you might not survive,” he said.
The European Union imposed sanctions on Sorokin, citing his “inhumane and degrading treatment” of prisoners.
Sorokin has denied the allegations against him.
He is far from the only Russian doctor accused of torturing Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Hundreds of former prisoners have described witnessing Russian medical professionals “directly participating in the torture, mistreatment, and degrading treatment of detainees,” according to a new report titled “The Anatomy of Torture” from the Kyiv-based Center for Civil Liberties.
Gn world
