Translated material
The territory of the atrocities
Both militants of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as representatives of Ukrainian armed groups, mainly volunteer battalions, are engaged in torture and executions of prisoners of war.
This is stated in the fresh study of the Amnesty International Foundation "broken bodies." The organization gives evidence of the four executions of Ukrainian military battalions of the DPR and LPR and evidence of numerous torture. The New Times Wittty of who tortures and kills in the Donbass 
Fighter "Army of the DPR", Maryinka, June 4, 2015
The testimonies convincingly prove that the Ukrainian armed forces and the formations controlled by Kyiv, on the one hand, and the detachments of separatists, on the other hand, committed war crimes, such as the torture of persons taken by them, ”the Amnesty International Foundation. His experts interviewed 33 former prisoners of war, of which 17 were captured by the militants of the DPR and the LPR (in the report these structures are called separatist), 16 among Ukrainian volunteer battalions and the security service of Ukraine.
“First, the victims were searched for themselves - through volunteers from the Ukrainian side, through volunteers and representatives of local authorities in the DPR/LPR. After the publication of the report, they themselves went to us - quite a lot of other people who were tortured or to other cruelty on both sides, ”said the AMNESTY International researcher Krasmiri Yankov. Investigations against prisoners are committed everywhere, but the fund distinguishes the formations that differ in special rigidity: from the part of the DPR and LPR, these are the Ghost battalions (its commander Alexei Mozgova was killed at the end of May) from Alchevsk and the Sparta battalion, which is headed by the favorite of the official Russian media, the “legendary Motor”, he is arseny. Pavlov. On the part of Kyiv, the concern of the fund caused the activities of the fighters of the Right Sector prohibited in Russia.
Secret objects
Most of the torture of the prisoners was carried out not in the places officially intended for detention, but at secret facilities. The Ghost kept people in the former building of the transport police in Alchevsk, Sparta - at its shooting range near the Donetsk airport, Ukrainian volunteer battalions - in the university building in Slavyansk and at the Volnovakh railway station. The fund states that Ukrainian judges who were prisoners came to, despite the obvious traces of torture on their bodies, did not dispose of the investigation. All former prisoners said that physical violence ceased as soon as they fell into official places of detention.
Amnesty International does not have accurate data on the number of prisoners: the parties to the conflict give different numbers that do not coincide with each other. The situation is complicated by the fact that the number of formations that can forcibly hold people is huge: these are the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the self -proclaimed authorities of the "people's republics", and irregular armed battalions from both side. “Volunteers” never called the exact number of prisoners and the place where they are contained. “Many relatives still do not know whether their relatives are killed or are somewhere in custody,” the fund explains.
In captivity at the DPR and LPR are Ukrainian military personnel of the Ministry of Defense, members of Ukrainian volunteer battalions and Prokievsky residents of the southeast (or those who were considered by the militias themselves). Ukrainian military formations are taken into custody of the militants of the DPR and LPR and people who are again suspected of helping or simply sympathy for the "people's republics". “Both sides of the armed conflict arbitrarily retain civilians who have not committed any crimes, the whole of whose guilt is that they share the political or ideological views of the enemy’s side,” the fund state. 
The experts of the fund also describe specific cases of torture and executions, these fragments of the report are fully consistent with its impressive name - “broken bodies”. The martyrologist begins with a description of the execution of one of the Ukrainian "cyborgs", the ordinary 90th battalion of the 81st Disanthus-School Brigade Igor Brinovitsky. He was captured during the battles for the Donetsk airport by the DPR battalion Sparta. His fighters beat the Ukrainians and demanded to admit which of them served as a machine gunner (11 military men fell into custody), Grinovitsky admitted, after which he was beaten even more, to the point that he could not move. The militias called the "cyborgs" an ambulance, but then Motorola entered the room where the prisoners were kept and specified who exactly the doctor was called. Everyone pointed to Brinovitsky. “I'll take care of him myself,” recalls one of the eyewitnesses of the word Arseniy Pavlov. After that, the “legendary militia”, according to the report by Amnesty International, shot the cyborg twice. Also in the battles for the Donetsk airport, Andrei Gavrilyuk, who served in the 95th Airmobile Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, was killed. On January 20, when the fighters of the DPR and the LPR blew up the airport, both legs were damaged by the military, and he could not move independently. Another Ukrainian fighter, Ostap Gavrilyak, who was also wounded, says that the "militias" of the DPR began to load wounded Ukrainians into a truck, but they did not have a stretcher on which Andrei Gavrilyuk could be transferred. “They did not have a stretcher, nothing, so they could not bear it. A few seconds later I heard three shots, ”the military says. On the video in YouTube, which was posted by the fighters of the DPR, Andrei Gavrilyuk can be seen with a gunshot wound in the middle of the forehead.
"Have a conscience - they are prisoners"
Witnesses also say that three Ukrainian troops were shot in the area of the village of Red Partisan. DPR units attacked a checkpoint with 25 Ukrainian military, four soldiers, including Andrei Kolesnik and Albert Sarukhan, hid in a ditch. There they sat until one of the "militias" threatened to throw a grenade. One of the surviving fighters says that the Deneyerians called them "fascists" and shot. “There were dozens of people around us, and each of them wanted to shoot. There was a girl there, about 25 years old, she shot at (ours) guys from the Dragunov sniper rifle from only about three meters. On the knees, light. She did what she wanted, ”recalls another Ukrainian soldier. At the same time, one of the DPR fighters told her: “Have a conscience, they are prisoners, they don’t have weapons, they don’t need it.” Not all soldiers survived: Sarukhanyan was killed after he said that "he was fighting for Ukraine." Two more soldiers were also shot.
Three more Ukrainians - Alexander Berdes, Vasily Demchuk and Pavel Plazinsky - captured in the village of Logvinovo. On one of the videos that the DPR fighters posted on YouTube, the soldiers are still alive and answer questions, but the next day the body of the military were found in a forest belt. 
The exploits of volunteers
The actions of the Kyiv volunteer battalions are not less stiff. In November 2014, in Volnovakha, the fighters of the Right Sector prohibited in Russia stopped a car with three Donetsk workers-builders. In the cell phone, one of them, Andrei Merzlik, the militants allegedly discovered the separatists. After that, the Ukrainians called Zhenya Merzlik and, introducing themselves as militias, asked if that DPR supported. She, fearing for her husband’s health, replied that she supports. After that, the detainees began to be beaten, Igor Poor tore the passport with the words "You are no longer a Ukrainian." The prisoners were even shown on television - as Russian saboteurs. “They needed to show some Russian terrorists, and we came up,” says another detainee, Alexander Pinchuk. The builders were captured for five days, they were beaten, strangled, Pinchuk even tried to bury them alive. Then they were taken out at a distance of about 20 kilometers from the Volnovakha, they returned the car and passports. “He told me that his head was played in football. If he had not been provided on time, he could die, ”the attending physician Pinchuk told the fund.
One of the former prisoners told Amnesty International about the basement near the village of Velikomikhailovka. According to him, there were mainly civilians - detained for pictures in support of the self -proclaimed republics in mobile phones, participating in the pro -Russian actions of the Party of Regions ... "They beat people with butt of their heads, systematically extorted money from people who contained widows. In addition, they collected a ransom from the relatives of the prisoners. We had to give them credit and debit cards with PIN codes. People lost all savings, ”the prisoner recalls.
Dmitry District, detained by the fighters of one of the volunteer battalions, said: "We will kill you, and no one will even notice." “They began to beat me and began to shoot. Bullets whistled next to his head; Now I do not hear one ear, ”he says. One of the informants of the DPR was held in Poltava and tortured, hanging on a hook and beating.
The fighters of the "people's republics" also treated the prisoners. “After we were brought to the basement of the former SBU building in Donetsk to the basement of 110 people, they beat and interrogated everyone for the first few hours. They were looking for commanders and local residents, ”the former prisoner from the Donbass battalion explained. He adds that during the first day captivity, he was guarded by military personnel of the Russian troops. 
The press secretary of the Right Sector organization, the Skoropadsky organization, which was banned in Russia, assured Amnesty International that they retained a maximum of a week on the basis of the organization of prisoners, and he denied information about the cruelty to prisoners. The fund also sent a request to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine on the legal basis for the participation of this organization in military operations and holding the prisoners, but did not receive an answer to it.
The fund recommends that the Ukrainian authorities and the authorities of the self -proclaimed republics take measures to prevent torture: to dismiss those responsible for them, to ensure the safety of witnesses, to guarantee an investigation of all cases of torture and executions. Amnesty International calls on international organizations to send their observers to the southeast. The call acquires special relevance right now, when military operations in the Donbass have resumed.
Appeals about torture and executions are coming only from Ukraine, despite a large number of refugees from the Donbass in Russia - often stories about abuses appear in the plots of federal TV. However, as the head of the Russian representative office of Amnesty International, Sergei Nikitin, told NT , the report was prepared mainly by the Ukrainian branch of the fund. “Refugees from the south-east of Ukraine did not contact us,” he explained.
Also, there were no appeals to the “Committee against torture”, his representative Dmitry Utukin told NT about this NT. “We have information only from the media, complaints about the actions of the Ukrainian army, members of the Right Sector, which were prohibited in Russia, there were no people's republics specifically to us,” he explained.
Photo: Mstyslav Chernov/Ap Photo, Igor Tkachenko/Reuters