Atrocities of the Russian occupiers in the Kherson region. Torture chamber in the House of Culture in Odradivka village

In the village of Odradivka, located in the Henichesk district of the Kherson region, Russian occupants are holding illegally detained civilians in the basement of the House of Culture.

Torture instead of culture

According to the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIJ), citing its own sources, there may also be civilians in the dungeons in Otradivka, whom representatives of the Russian Federation brought from the Kakhovka district of the Kherson region.

A reader from Kherson told journalists about these dungeons and the people held there on condition of anonymity.

According to him, the basement of the House of Culture is quite large: “its area is very large and there are enough rooms where [illegally detained] children are kept one at a time.” A resident of the Kherson region also emphasized that some of the prisoners “are very tortured and forced to cooperate.”

Journalists managed to contact residents of Otradivka and neighboring villages of the Novotroitsk community. Local residents confirmed the information that the Russians turned the House of Culture into dungeons.

“I know that in our House of Culture in Otradivka there is a basement into which the Russian military takes ’unreliable’ people. They are tortured there. The Russians have repeatedly threatened to send other people there “to the basement” if they don’t like something,” people who found themselves under Russian occupation told reporters.

CIJ’s interlocutors also noted that Russian military personnel are constantly stationed in the building of the House of Culture in Otradivka.

As journalists recalled, a huge House of Culture was erected in Otradivka, which became the embodiment of gigantomania to which Soviet officials gravitated, including Vitaliy Storchak, the long-term head of the former local collective farm "Stepovyi", who died in March of this year.

What happens in Otradivka during the Russian occupation?

When Russian forces occupied the left bank of Kherson, Vitaliy Storchak went over to the side of the enemy. According to journalists, now his son, Oleksandr Storchak, the former village chairman of Otradivka and a deputy of the Novotroitsk District Council during 2015-2020, is collaborating with the enemy.

Oleksandr Storchak headed the illegitimate occupation “administration” of Otradivka and may be involved in organizing a fake “referendum” (on the “annexation” of the occupied part of the Kherson region to the Russian Federation) and illegal “elections” held by the Russian occupiers.

In addition, local residents said that Oleksandr Storchak settled Russians in apartments from which people had left, and repeatedly organized propaganda events, which were also held in captured educational institutions. Moreover, in January last year, several local residents were forcibly evicted from Otradivka “for pro-Ukrainian propaganda and against the work of the occupation administration.”

Who could end up in the dungeons in Odradivka?

Oleksiy Hrynko (abducted on 22 March 2024 in the village of Lyubymivka, Kakhovka district), Oleksandr Herchakovsky (abducted on 14 March this year in Kakhovka), Denys Shum, Ivan and Anton Shtepov (abducted in the village of Hornostayivka in November last year) may be held in the basement of the Odradivka house of culture, which the Russian military turned into a torture chamber. In addition, Russian representatives are holding another resident of Hornostayivka in the basement of the house of culture in Odradivka, whose surname cannot be established at this time, the CHR said.

Civilian colonies, which the Russians illegally take away from Kativna, were cleared in the basement of the cultural building in the village of Odradivtsi. From left to right: Oleksiy Grinko, Oleksandr Gerchakovsky and Denis Shum. Photo from social media, published by CJR. dqxikeidqxiuuant

Civilian prisoners illegally held by Russians in a torture chamber in the basement of the cultural centre in the village of Odradivka. From left to right: Oleksiy Hrinko, Oleksandr Herchakovskyi and Denys Shum. Photos from social media published by the CHR.
Earlier, we wrote about 23-year-old Denys Shum and 22-year-old twin brothers Ivan and Anton Shtepov. The Russians arbitrarily detained the young men back in November 2023 and are keeping them in captivity without giving any reasons for such actions. At the same time, the twin brothers were unofficially accused of guiding the Ukrainian Armed Forces to Russian positions, and Denys Shum was also suspected of collaborating with the Ukrainian defence forces.

The CHR also told about the illegally abducted Oleksiy Hrinko, born in 1980. The man lived in the village of Lyubymivka, Kakhovka district. On 22 March this year, at approximately three to four o’clock in the afternoon, the Russian occupiers broke into his house, put a bag over Oleksiy’s head and took him away in an unknown direction. The abductee’s wife asked for help on social media.

As noted by journalistic sources, on 22 March 2023, the Russian military visited many residents of the Lyubymivska village community. The invaders broke into people’s homes and searched for so-called "Ukrainian saboteurs", because on that day, Ukrainian forces destroyed an ammunition depot of Russian forces located in the building of a former local kindergarten, which was seized by the Russian occupiers.

"Oleksiy Hrinko is a simple, very nice person, he was selling fertilisers, worked for Chumak, Grintim and other companies," the people told journalists on condition of anonymity. In their opinion, Oleksiy was simply caught by the occupiers. Journalistic sources also reported that in 2023, the Russian occupiers had already conducted an illegal search of Oleksiy Hrynko’s house. According to the Crisis Media Centre, the man tried to leave the occupation, but the Russians did not let him through: he was severely beaten at one of the Russian checkpoints, so he was forced to return to his native village.

As for Oleksandr Herchakovskyi, it is known that the Russian occupiers broke into the house of 40-year-old Oleksandr at around eight o’clock in the evening on 14 March 2024. The acquaintances of the man abducted by the Russians told the journalists of the CJR about this.

Oleksandr Herchakovskyi was born on 16 March 1984 in the village of Stanislav, Kherson district, and had been living in Kakhovka for a long time. He worked in a store of a chain of construction and household goods.

According to his acquaintances, "the occupiers broke into his house in the evening, beat him, conducted a ’search’, but it is unknown what they were looking for." "Then they ordered him to take warm clothes and took him somewhere. As far as we could find out, he was abducted by the FSB," the witnesses said on condition of anonymity.

Representatives of the occupiers did not provide any reasons for the detention, nor where the man was taken and where he is being held. Unfortunately, this is a typical scenario, because, as the analytical study of enforced disappearances that took place in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine showed, the Russian Federation constantly conceals the whereabouts of missing persons, and after the disappearance, the relatives of the victims cannot obtain information from either the local occupation authorities or the officials of the Russian Federation.

As the lawyer Hanna Ovdiyenko noted, Russia could confirm that the disappeared person was under the control of the Russian authorities when months or even a year had passed since the disappearance. However, even after that, the representatives of the Russian Federation could not provide information about the exact whereabouts of the person or his or her health condition. As a result, relatives of the missing persons were effectively in a state of vacuum: first, they did not know whether the missing person was alive, and then they did not know how they were being treated.

General context

It is known that at least 5,600 Ukrainians suffered from torture and inhumane treatment by representatives of the Russian Federation. As the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin noted in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine, Ukrainian law enforcement officers have already identified so many victims during the investigation. Unfortunately, this is an inconclusive figure, because law enforcement officers cannot verify and establish the number of victims in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, which are under the control of the Russian Armed Forces.

Topics: Denys Shum Oleksandr Herchakovskyi Oleksiy Hrinko Torture War crime War Kherson region