Viktor Moskalenko: “What I had already read about Chechnya saved me in captivity…”

Viktor apologized for not being able to invite me to his home, to the de-occupied village of Kurylivka, because of a prylit [translator’s note: arrival; a way to say that a shell or missile hit the target], there. We also couldn’t meet at a rented apartment in Saltivka [t/n: Kharkiv district that suffered the most from Russian shelling] because his wife was not feeling well. As a result of what she experienced, she developed diabetes and a number of other health problems. So we met in the center of Kharkiv. Almost all the buildings of this city block have traces of shelling and boarded-up windows. In the bookstore, with its brand new double-glazed windows, a familiar employee allocated us a cozy corner fenced off by book shelves, with soft chairs, a large aquarium and fragrant coffee.

Viktor is wearing a colorful t-shirt and jeans. He is cheerful. Today he has only two hours for the interview because he is in a hurry to see the dentist. After the torture he experienced, he has plenty of health problems, particularly with his teeth.

Language

I apologize for speaking with mistakes. I switched to Ukrainian after they beat me half to death. That was the first interrogation. They put me in some rubber stuff and I couldn't hear well because of it. I was answering in surzhyk [t/n: Ukrainian-Russian mixed language] because that's how we speak in our village. And they said to me, “You, old bitch! Speak Russian!”

They took a 1kg bag, maybe 2 kg. I guess it was filled with sand...I didn't really see anything. They put me next to the wall... Before that I was lying on the ground, and they tortured me with electric shocks. 

—Stand str-r-raight!

Well, I thought they were about to hit me in the stomach right away. But they hit me in the head with this bag. Damn, if it wasn't for my neck, then my head would have flown I don't know where. So, they struck me four times: right—left, right—left. I got a nose full of sand. They said that I was a strong man, but I didn’t give a s**t about them. I thought, “I could also tell and show you how-to. I wonder how you would tweet!". When they beat me half to death, it was over, they calmed down. They dragged me away on the ground. They got nothing from me. I stood my ground: I took the vehicle myself, there were no accomplices.

After that I said to myself, "Damn, as long as it takes me, I am going to study and speak Ukrainian. Even if I speak it distorted, I’ll do it anyway."

Anticipation

It was quite interesting how the invasion сaught me. All my 60 years, I had been living in the village of Kurylivka, Kupiansk region. I farmed there: I had a lot of land, equipment... And recently I had been working in Poland as a long-distance trucker. So, I came back on vacation, got a new visa and stayed a little longer. It was already 20 February 2022 and it was time to leave. However, my soul kind of didn't let me go... I told my son to go back to Poland, but I stayed. 

The situation was alarming. They said the invasion would happen on the 23rd but they attacked on the 24th. On the 27th, they already occupied Kupiansk. Our village is closer to Luhansk region, it’s 10 kilometers from Kupiansk. They went through Kupiansk in the direction of Balakliia and Izium, through all those, as they say, forests and thickets. All of the bridges here were blown up. Well, not completely, but they [t/n: Russian troops] were definitely afraid to even set foot here for half a month. They set up their roadblock right at the entrance to Kupiansk, but they didn't go back and forth. Maybe their scouts were coming and going in passenger vehicles, but there was no offensive. 

Rally in Kupiansk

On 1 March 2022, we went to a defiance rally in the central square to say we disagreed with the fact that the Russian Federation entered and to express our protest, demanding that they get out of here. We chanted “Kupiansk is Ukraine!", "Russian warship, go f*** yourself!”. They started to disperse us. You see, rallies and insubordination are not acceptable in Russia. Then they brought an armored personnel carrier from Kharkivska Street and started shooting in the air, to scare people, as they say. Kolya Maslii [t/n: Mykola Maslii, a member of the Kupiansk Town Council. Maslii openly opposed Kupiansk mayor Hennadii Matsehora’s decision to surrender the city; he organized the protest on 1 March 2022 and asked other locals to join it. He went missing on the same day.], a deputy whom we knew, went to them so that they would not scare us. They snatched him and threw smoke grenades into the corridor between us. That’s when I got my jacket burned a little... And so it was over. They did kidnap him. There were many strangers there. I asked, 

—Where is he?

—They probably went somewhere to talk him out of it.

And up until now, Kolya hasn't returned. No one knows anything about his fate…

USSR

Then we went to the roadblock. I wanted not only to speak out, but also to talk to them, to understand why they attacked and how they explain it to themselves. Maybe I have such a need because of my age. I said, 

“Listen, let's be honest. I served in the army in the times of the USSR, which you love and dream about so much. Although, considering your age, guys, you never even saw that USSR. It ended more than 30 years ago. And you are not even thirty. So, then, what do you know about the USSR? I am 60 years old, and I can tell you a lot about the USSR. I worked, lived and studied in it, and I served in the army. Well, you know, it’s not what it seems!”

Then I decided to play my trump card that everyone could understand.

—Did you take an oath?

—We did.

—What is written in your oath?

—To protect the Motherland.

—Well, guys, you see… You are carrying out a criminal order because you attacked a neighboring state, which has its own sovereignty, its borders, everything in the world.

And as soon as I managed to explain something to one of them, a ranking officer came and took him away, so that he couldn't listen to me.

Big Lie

You know, Russian television is very zombie-like. They watch that nonsense and shout that Ukraine is lying all the time, and they have... their own reality. It was the same in sovok [t/n: derogatory term for the Soviet Union]. The Iron Curtain.

When I served in the USSR, I strongly believed that it was my country. I remember the TV program called "International Panorama” in which they talked a lot about the world of capitalism. I remember watching an episode about the Elbe River, which flows from West Germany, and that there, they allegedly contaminated it with chemicals so much that... And they showed us the foam and said that the river was dead.

I believed the propaganda until the moment I got to serve abroad. It’s 1980, Germany, I am a tank engineer, or rather a tank repairman. And one day, we get to the Elbe River to ‘soak’ tanks. This is a kind of training: to drive tanks underwater and out to get the military used to underwater driving. And suddenly our ensign brings us some trout! Although I was a total C-student at school, I loved to read a lot and I was interested in many things. I learned farming from books, I used to read about history... And I knew for sure that trout are found only in clean waters. How is it possible that trout can live in a river as dirty as the Elbe?

And here is another lie. At that time, the war was already going on in Afghanistan. Ours got in there, and they told us that it was fraternal aid to Afghanistan. Now I can already see what all these expressions of "fraternal aid" are about and how they work. We were told “Your Motherland can live without you, but you cannot live without it!". Well then, it means that if I form this Motherland, I am part of it?! Each and every person creates a country. If all its inhabitants, all citizens leave, then there will be no country!

The Holodomor of 1932

And they also lied to us about the Holodomor, that it was something like a crop failure and that's the reason why millions were dying like flies.

My ancestors were really scared. And one day, right before her death — may she rest in peace! — my mother told me everything. She was born here, in 1936. Her ancestors are from the Kuban. In the beginning, my great-grandfather was subjected to rozkurkulennya [t/n: the Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, or executions of millions of prosperous peasants and their families, often referred to in English as dekulakization, from the Russian word kulak], for the first time. Then came the second time when they were deprived of absolutely everything... That night they put their belongings in a cart and left on foot. Before winter, they reached the Luhansk region, dug a dugout near Starobilsk and spent the winter in it. The following spring and summer, they moved here, to Petropavlіvka. Now it is reduced to rubble! It is located three kilometers from me, closer to the orcs [t/n: a pejorative commonly used by Ukrainians to refer to Russian soldiers participating in the Russo-Ukrainian War and Russian citizens who support the aggression of Russia against Ukraine]. And the distance from my house to the orcs is seven or eight kilometers.

I found out the real surname of my ancestors only before my mother's death. They lived here as the Dinchenkos. And in the Kuban, they were known as the Finkos. On my wife's side of the family, there were seven children. They lived near Kupiansk. All the boys died of hunger, but three girls survived.

ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation)

I have been helping our military since 2015. One day in the spring, I was driving a crawler tractor to till the field and I saw something military in the distance... There was a guy running towards me, signaling that I should speed up. So I hit the gas. There was a field two kilometers from that place where I owned a bit of land—around ten hectares. Having tilled it, I went back and saw them waving at me. I stopped the tractor, got out. The military vehicles stood there. I didn't know that they would be sent here in the winter. I said to them, "I don’t understand, how and why did you end up here?" “Well, it’s like this and like that, stuff happens." “Okay,” I said. “Is there anything you need? How can I help you?” “No, we don’t need anything.” “I'll come to you in the evening," I said. I had a farm at home. I collected some eggs and a little bit of everything, and I went to get acquainted with them.

—And we know who you are, they said.

—How do you know?

—We already found out everything.

—Well then, what did you find out about me?

—That you are a Moskal! [t/n: Moskal is an ethnic slur that means "Russian", literally "Muscovite", in Ukrainian, Romanian, Polish and Belarusian]

—In what sense?

—Well, that's what everyone calls you, Moskal.

I looked at the soldiers and said, 

—Okay, let's assume I’m a Moskal…

—No, we know for sure that you are a pro-Ukrainian guy.

Well, sure, I am for Ukraine. How can you not love your country? Live. Eat bread. And what’s more, I also grew the grain for it! If something is wrong with the authorities, it is our fault. We ourselves are to blame. I used to flip out, I used to make my point so many times. You shouldn’t vote with your heart or for someone who promises you some buckwheat. You should vote for someone’s good deeds. As some people kept saying to me, "I don't care what kind of government we might have." Well, listen, man: if you can't make a decision yourself, then you're nobody. How can you be respected when it makes no difference to you whether the scoundrels will come, or we will have our own state? And I used to go to the village council to raise a fuss about land shares because they wanted to deceive people again, giving out thousands of hryvnias and that's it. If we are a hromada [t/n: community], then let’s fight to the end and know where our land and our money go!

24 February 2022

In short, we became friends with the boys. They called me at 5:00am on 24 February 2022.

—Uncle Vitya, we need you here, urgently.

While I was going there I saw, exactly three houses away from me, missiles flying in the direction of the village of Borova.

The boys were ordered to redeploy. But the problem was that one vehicle didn't start and there was no driver for the other. Our army was in disarray, there were not enough people.

—Uncle Vitya, we need to hide the vehicles.

We found a place for one: a guy I knew put it in his yard. That vehicle was an ordinary one, a KRAZ truck. The orcs took it from him two months before they found mine. And I had a command-and-control vehicle, a brand new one — the unit itself, the control panel, it had everything you could imagine. So I hid it in the hangar where I had a lot of agricultural equipment. I damaged the vehicle: I unscrewed the valuable equipment and hid it in a different place, and I cut the wires so that the orcs wouldn’t be able to use it. 

The guys said: 

—Uncle Vitya, get in a vehicle, come with us!

—You guys are crazy, aren’t you? And what about my wife?

—Take your wife too.

—And what about my house? No, I will not go anywhere.

The communication was already being jammed, so the guys didn't know which roads were better to take. The fact that I was old turned out to be a good thing. We didn't have GPS, only a map. So, I drew them a map, took them on short, safe roads, and said goodbye. They left some groceries for people before leaving. And my task was to save the vehicle. And that’s what I was doing.

Resistance

We had problems with electricity in our village, so there was no bread being baked. My friend Andrii and I would go to the bakery in occupied Kupiansk and get bread to bring to the store. At the same time, we were engaged a little in gathering intelligence information and passing the data we obtained on to our guys in the SBU [t/n: the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU)]. Suddenly we found rockets for a Grad multiple rocket launcher in the forest: the 92nd brigade left them there when it all started. At that time, our troops were stationed in Borova. It was hard to believe: there were the orcs, and here were our guys, and we were between them! We offered to bring those rockets to our guys since we are rural people, and we know the roads.

About a week and a half later, while driving, we saw a column of orcs moving in the direction of Borova. There were inscriptions on the armored personnel carriers: My za mir, tolko za vyes [t/n: “We are for peace/the world, but for the entire one”; a pun as the word “mir” in Russian means both “peace” and “world”], Vagabonds and all that kind of crap. Instead of armor protection, various odd things were welded on the vehicles: cultivator discs and everything else. And I was with my friend, Serioga. He now serves as an artilleryman.  

—Sirenkyi, what the f***! We need to somehow warn our guys. There are only 5-7 of them at the roadblock.

Well, we tried our best, we really tried... But those m***f***ers were quite smart, cutting us off so that we couldn’t overtake the convoy. So we went through the fields. But we were late... We stopped the car and climbed on it to take a look. A battle ensued. Well, it was great, dammit: our guys kicked their asses! Those Grads and Tiger armed personnel carriers were hit and caught fire, and the orcs too. But there were still many of them rolling. My friend said, 

—Let's think what we can do!

—The rifle is no use! Do you know battle tactics or not?

We thought what else we could do, but a rifle against machine guns doesn’t stand a chance.

It was like 1937 

When the occupation began, the situation was like 1937, when neighbors used to write denunciations against each other. 

Something new was introduced: people would quarrel and then run to a roadblock to tell them that someone was pro-Ukrainian. I wonder, what should a Ukrainian really be like? He is pro-Ukrainian one day and then he’s someone else. Anyway, there would be these denunciations. And the orcs didn’t really care: what mattered most was a written statement. Things could become so absurd that when someone would get arrested, he would say: “What do you mean I am pro-Ukrainian! [The person who denounced me] is himself pro-Ukrainian, dammit!”. That was really something. They give someone a good beating, and then they go and get the other one. I was ashamed of these people. I saw all this with my own eyes…

We had several guys, former ATO-shnyky [t/n: participants in the 2014-2018 Ukrainian Anti-Terrorist Operation], in our village who were hiding in an abandoned house. And you see, people saw someone going out into the garden. The orcs were informed, "There is someone living in the house!". Well, damn, let that someone live there. If you are really interested in what is happening, go and take a look. If you are men, of course. Well, no. Two big dudes went to inform soldiers at the roadblock! You know what, it’s very hard to watch the people who lived nearby, whom you knew but you never thought could turn out to be so nasty. Now they already ran away, these collaborators, but there are some who still stay here.

Guests

I was already prepared to leave on that Monday with my wife. So, it was like we were going and then we were not going. I said, 

—To hell with all that! I feel the situation is getting really sh**ty.

There was a girl I knew and she lived with an ATOshnyk. She left literally within two weeks. Otherwise, she would be finished.

—Uncle Vitya, you should leave. It’ll be Armageddon here. You are going be in trouble. 

Okay, fine. I went to Svatove to clean up my phone, because we had no cell service in our area. WhatsApp was fine but Viber would not open and I couldn’t delete many things from it.

They came at 7:00pm. It was exactly four months and four days after everything began, 28 June 2022. I was fixing my car in the yard, my wife was cooking dinner.

—Can we come in? they asked.

They had probably been told that I had a dog, an Alabai. The kids called him Shrek. He was a big, kind guy. He had died a year before and took my soul with him. I didn't want to get a new one because I still hadn’t recovered from it.

Okay, what should I do now? My first thought was to resist, and I had something I could use. But God led me away from that. Okay, I didn’t care about my life but what would my wife die for? I made a decision: I thought, fine, let's try to keep on fighting.

—Liuda, we have guests! I shouted to her in the kitchen. And she couldn’t hear me because everything was sizzling there.

Four FSB people entered. They pointed their guns at me and didn’t let me out of their sight. They said, “We would like to see what you have in the hangar.” I took the keys, and we went over. I opened the hangar calmly. One of them went in it: 

—What the f***! It’s a military vehicle! Where did you get it?

—Where I took it, it is not there anymore.

—What is that supposed to mean, b**ch?

That was it. They started cursing, of course. That’s the way they talk. I said this, I said that.
“You, m***f***er, you helped the ZSU!” [t/n: the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU)]

And who else am I supposed to help? If they were standing near my field and they are my army!

In short, they took the vehicle. Then they got all three of my phones. I didn't really think they would come so out of the blue! There was some correspondence in the phones. One thing irritated them: I called them orcs. But this was nothing compared to them accusing me of being connected to the ZSU and also of keeping a military vehicle. They started interrogating me, but I didn’t give in. I said, “I drove it here myself; I don't know anything, and I don't know anyone.”

Prison

When the orcs brought me to prison, they asked each other:

—Who did they get?

—A Moskal!

—Ha-ha-ha!

—But this is their Moskal, not ours.

They laughed as if it was a TV comedy. They took my glasses away, so I couldn’t see well at all. There were eight of us in a cell with two beds. We slept under the beds and wherever we could. It was hot and stuffy, and the toilet was right there. Then we were transferred to a cell with four beds. We thought we’d lucked out! And then they started throwing more people in. There were, damn, 18-20 people in it at one point. So, we were in a cell. And when you heard them banging on the grate, it meant they would come into the cell. What you had to do was to stand up and press your head against the wall. And you had to stand like that and under no circumstances were you supposed to look at anything. Otherwise, everyone in the cell would be beaten. 

The patriots were tortured the most. We envied the alcoholics and drug addicts. They were not tortured, just kept for fifteen days and then released. And they were also taken to work, they breathed the air. We, the patriots, had no chance. We were particularly dangerous people. All 49 days I was kept there I saw neither sun nor fresh air.

Interrogation

When they took me from home, I grabbed some pills: sedatives and pain relievers. The other thing that saved me in captivity was that I had already read about Chechnya... I knew everything in advance. I knew that you should clench your teeth tightly when you are subjected to an electric shock, and that you must not betray people. Because this is what they do: tell us what you know, and we’ll let you out. No way! I did not give anyone’s name. They were torturing me with electricity so hard that one time I saw myself dead. I’d rather be hit with a metal pipe than electricity! When you are subjected to an electric shock, you are completely turned inside out. According to the whims of the torturer, he will reduce the current or turn it up. They used to play various ways.

I knew that it was absolutely necessary to overcome the pain. You are shaken all over, your skin peels... If you open your mouth, you’ll bite your tongue off. People did bite their tongues off, and they also broke their teeth. My acquaintance, who was in the same cell with me, broke his. And you should also keep your eyes shut. Although I had a plastic bag wrapped around my head anyway... I still can't stand the sound of tape. Well, I feel a little better now, but still... The electric current gets sparks bursting out of your eyes... Shhh... It’s like lightning, damn. And that’s when the voltage is low. When the voltage is high, your eyes almost pop out.

Most of all, I was afraid of becoming crazy and getting some kind of infection. Now I am busy visiting the doctors I know here... They attached the battery alligator clips to my testicles, damn. When I was falling, the skin was tearing... They tortured other people before me too. What if someone had hepatitis, AIDS or some other disease? I could contract it. I took all the tests. The doctors told me that it might take up to three months for symptoms to appear. I asked them, 

—Okay, listen, can you tell me at least something now.

—Everything is fine now.

Other prisoners

There was also a women's cell. My acquaintance Halya, a farmer, was sitting there. The rich people also ended up there. There was Maksym, the owner of a meat processing plant. The orcs wanted him to rewrite ownership transfer documents to their names, but he did not want to cooperate. So, they threw him in prison so that he would, like, “think about it". And what was he supposed to think about? I said to him: 

—Maks, think this way. If you refuse, at least you will not lose your conscience.

He did refuse. But he was so worried that I had to calm him down as if he was a child. He was once a big cheese, such a swaggerer that he never even said "hello" to me. And now I tell him:

—Listen, calm down, everything is fine. Stick to your guns. Yeah, we're in the s**t. Nothing depends on us. They can shoot us at any moment, they promised. And they can kill. But as long as we live, we will hold on.

In a word, I saw too many of these swaggerers. I went through so much in that prison that I don’t give a damn about all that. If there is nothing to respect a person for, I simply don’t care about this importance. Each of us is a set of bones and a mug of blood. That's all.

Torturers 

People were killed. When I was there, two people went crazy, not in our cell though. He screams, and they continue to beat him. Why are you hitting a mentally ill person?

Many were beaten half to death, dragged here and there. The prison howled so much that it was simply terrifying! A concentration camp, in a word. The fascists paled in comparison to what this f***ing FSB was doing. The LNR [t/n: Luhansk People's Republic] people guarded the prison, then the DPR [t/n: Donetsk People's Republic] people did it, then the LNR again. They did shifts of 15 days or so. The LNR-ivtsi used to cuss the DNR-ivtsi out. The DNR-ivtsi called the LNR-ivtsi and moskali gandony [t/n: informal for “condoms,” slang for “assholes/scumbags”]. The moskali shouted: "These goat republics!". In short, there’s no way to understand them. They even hate themselves and not just us.

Women

We were given a few sticky macaroni noodles per day. You eat them only to keep your stomach from being totally empty. Food packages were scheduled on Mondays and Fridays. My wife would run with these bags... The orcs still managed to take half for themselves! Well, at least we could get something. Of course, I didn’t eat it all myself, we shared everything equally with everyone, at least a little. If you didn't eat it, it would become spoiled... The heat was terrible, there was no refrigerator — it wasn’t a resort! So, we ate on Monday and Friday, more or less.

I started a tradition — no one can say that I lie! — when my wife brought us packages for the first time: I said, 

—Guys, I know at what cost we got this parcel... My wife lives far away, the buses don't work. Let's thank our women... Because we, assholes, could not protect ourselves. Let’s pay respect and bow to them, to those who come here and take care of us.

And as soon as we finished eating, the boys would say, "Ivanovych, we bow to your Liudmyla." And that was how we thanked each woman. There was also Kolya’s wife who used to bring packages. Then they killed him...

Some time after it was over, I found out what those women had to go through. The orcs told them to “get the f*** out of here” or they made them wait from eight in the morning until noon before they took their packages. They did it on purpose. And the first time I was interrogated, my wife was taken away at night! I didn't f***ing know that! They broke into the house:  

—Tell us, b***h, who visited him, who he was friends with! It depends on you whether he will live or not!” 

She said, “But he is just a truck driver and all that.” It worked out.

The final straw

On the sixth day they came as angry as dogs:

— Where is this f***ing Moskalenko? Come on, you b***h, get that old m***f***er! Bring that bastard here!

Apparently, they got something on me. When I was tortured for the third time, I couldn’t bear such torment anymore. The level of the previous electric current was child's play by comparison... When you are reduced to meat, nothing matters anymore. Even if I had been shot then, I wouldn’t have flinched. Fine, even if you killed me — so be it. I don't remember how it ended. I must have lost consciousness.

After that, I wanted to end my own life. Although they warned everyone: if someone does something to himself, the whole cell will face the consequences. My friend said to me, 

—Ivanych, maybe you shouldn’t do it?

—If I do it, it’ll be done beautifully. Don't worry, you won't be blamed.

He convinced me saying, 

—Okay... If they do it one more time, then yes, go ahead.

Thank God, there was no more torture. I stayed in a cell that way until I was released.

Release

At around 2:00am, they yanked us up, called our names. My glasses were returned, I had been like a blind kitten... Sign here, dammit, that you have no complaints. Holy, Holy, Holy! And they led you to the other side of the corridor... I looked there and saw the troops. Holy crap, I thought, we are done now: it’s all over, they are going to kill us.

Then they took us to the dam and read out that we were forbidden to return to the republic for a period of 25 years. These f***ing republicans! They created the Kharkiv People's Republic in Kupiansk region... And how about that I'm 60 years old and I have a house, a household — everything is there? Well done! It’s total insanity... It’s like that same rozkurkuliuvannya of 1927. That's exactly how people abandoned everything they owned back then. My grandfather took the girls and came here on foot with my grandmother Hanna. And his father and mother were sent to Siberia.

When they took the plastic bag off my head, the fresh air made me sick! We lived in a cramped cell, the heat was 50 degrees, without windows, it was absolutely horrible... Maks, Halia, and I walked around three hundred meters. And then we saw a flag in the distance! I can’t express what I felt... I am a man, but I suddenly burst into tears... Damn, it’s freedom! No one can understand. I said, “Listen, let's get out of here quickly before we are shot. Who the hell knows what's going to come into their heads!”

Restoration

Thank God, my village was liberated by ZSU. I returned all the valuable vehicle equipment to the guys: at least I saved something... My house is on the front line now. We have fixed and replaced the windows several times, but they still fly out. Three of my fellow villagers were recently killed by shells. But people stay, they buy seeds. I say: 

—Hey, your place is sown with shells, and the only thing you can think about is the seeds!

I have completely abandoned farming and I work as a truck driver. I turn the steering wheel, talk to people — that’s my therapy. I drive all over Europe, carrying Amazon parcels. My wife needs medicine...

Okay, sweetie, I have to run to get my teeth fixed.

Text originally published (in Ukrainian) by Suspilne Kultura as part of a collaboration with Documenting Ukraine. 

Translated by Dmytro Kyyan