From the TV screen to the ‘punishment pit’

Russian state news employee who resigned in protest sent to ‘torture basement’ for unwilling soldiers

Ilya Andreyev, a former correspondent for the Russian state news network Channel One who reportedly resigned in protest but was later deceived into signing a contract with the Defense Ministry, has been held in a basement for soldiers who refuse to fight in the annexed Luhansk region for multiple days, according to the outlets Novaya Gazeta Europe and Astra.

Colleagues of the 42-year-old ex-reporter told Novaya Gazeta Europe that Andreyev quit his job at Channel One after visiting Ukraine’s Chernihiv region in 2022 for a work assignment. An acquaintance of Andreyev said the network “blacklisted” him when he left, making it difficult for him to find work elsewhere.

In September 2023, Andreyev signed a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry. His wife Yana told Astra that her husband never planned to go to the front. “[He was promised that] he would serve in Moscow — that’s the only reason my husband agreed,” she said. Despite the official assurance, Andreyev was sent to war almost immediately.

On November 8, Andreyev submitted an official request to take several days off to renew his expired passport and to “hold a church wedding with [his] spouse, in accordance with [their] religious beliefs.” The leadership of Andreyev’s Russian unit approved the request, but commanders from the annexed “Luhansk People’s Republic” (“LNR”) denied it. Instead, they sent him to a “punishment pit,” and when he tried to escape, he was tied to a tree for “insubordination.”

On November 17, Andreyev’s wife traveled to the self-proclaimed “LNR.” By then, her husband had been released from the “punishment pit,” and the couple decided to return to his unit’s base in the Moscow region to “sort everything out.” When they reached the border crossing in Russia’s Belgorod region, however, they were stopped by border guards, who, suspecting Andreyev of desertion, sent him to their commander’s office. According to Yana Andreyeva, who ultimately had to return to Moscow alone, the guards “used violence against Ilya” and “spoke horribly to him.”

I asked them to help, and they responded that they weren’t going to help us and that we were doing illegal things. I said, “What, you think your command is doing legal things?” I explained to them that he was sick and that he needed medical attention. That much was clear from looking at him. They responded, “The Motherland will cure him.”

On November 22, Andreyev contacted his wife and told her that he was being taken to the village of Zaitseve in the annexed “DNR,” where Russian forces are known to have basements where they illegally detain soldiers who refuse to fight. According to Astra, there are currently at least 17 people being held there in addition to Andreyev.

The existence of special camps where the Russian military tortures soldiers who have tried to resign from the service was first reported in the summer of 2022. According to journalists who spoke to the prisoners’ relatives, hundreds of Russians have passed through these camps. The soldiers held there are threatened, fed irregularly or not fed at all, deprived of bathrooms and basic hygiene products, and tortured.