Yulia Paevskaya survived a real hell and told the whole world about it so that everyone would know about the atrocities and war crimes of the military of the Russian Federation.
Paramedic Yulia Paevskaya, with the call sign "Taira", who was held captive by the Russians for about three months, spoke about torture and hell in Mariupol. Children were dying before her eyes, the Rashists took even pregnant women prisoner, and when they killed people, they laughed.
Taira spoke about her experience before the Helsinki Commission of the US Congress, a government body created in part to promote human rights at the international level.
"Pregnant prisoners, whose fate is unknown to either their relatives or the state. A fighter who was beaten for 3 hours and then thrown into the basement like a sack. And only a day later, someone came to him. The dead child is in the arms of the mother," she shared terrible memories of a paramedic.
She saw people scooping up water from puddles, dogs nibbling, and dragging human limbs around Mariupol. "Taira" said that the occupiers forced the prisoners to undress and killed people slowly, with laughter. Rashists mocked Ukrainians in special torture chambers, which they "equipped" with devices for bullying.
“The accusations against the prisoners are exactly the same, where only the names on the papers change, and even the sex of the accused does not change. No one is trying to prove or investigate anything, and evidence is obtained simply using inhuman torture. One of my tormentors asked me: “You know, why am I doing this to you?". I replied: "Because you can," Taira said.
The paramedic recalled that a seven-year-old boy who had received bullet wounds was dying on her knees. "Taira" could not save him, the child lived out his last moments in her arms.
“Prisoners in their cells scream for weeks and die from torture without any medical care during this stay in hell. The only thing they felt before they died was bullying and additional beatings,†Paevskaya added.
"Taira" closed the eyes of her dead friend, she saw a lot of torment and death. The paramedic said that Russians fired at Mariupol; the air strikes destroyed the city. In the hospital where Paevskaya worked, she and other doctors slept two to three hours a day, and the military lived on the same schedule. The wounded and the dead were brought every five to ten minutes; still alive and already dead people were lying on top of each other, Taira recalls.
"Cars in which people are burning. The police are taking out women and children mutilated beyond recognition from under the rubble," the paramedic said.
Paramedic "Taira": what is known about Yulia Paevskaya, who was released from captivity
- Recall, Taira was detained on March 16 at a checkpoint in the village of Mangush, 15 km from Mariupol. This happened during the evacuation of women and children, which Julia carried out. The day before the captivity, the woman managed to transmit to the world media a video from her chest camera with video evidence of the actions of the Russian army against the civilian population. Russian propagandists call her a "participant of Azov".
- On June 17, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Paevskaya had been released from captivity.
- After her release, Taira recorded the first video in which she thanked the president for his help and emphasized that she was now in a safe place.
