Tales of torture as Kherson emerges from occupation

In the liberated city, Bel Trew finds joy at Zelensky’s visit is overshadowed by stories of horror during Russian takeover

- Bel Trew

Deep in the basement of the police headquarters in Kherson, occupying Russian soldiers ran an interrogation operation, according to Ukrainian officers returning to the liberated city. A shooting range was converted into a torture area where Putin's forces would blindfold people and beat them so hard they could barely walk. Some of those who went in did not come out again.

Police say they have also discovered a mass grave containing the corpses of the Ukrainian territorial defence who were killed at the start of the invasion while trying to halt Russia's advance. As in so many recently-liberated towns in Ukraine, identifying the dead and missing will be a grim task in the coming weeks.

"We don't know how many have been killed or disappeared, every day people come to us looking for their missing relative and friend," said Dennis Zaharchenko, assistant to the chief of the Kherson police department, as shelling boomed in the background. "In one park, we found 17 bodies of territorial defence, they are part of those who tried to defend the city and were killed at the very beginning of the invasion."

The Independent was not permitted to enter the police building because it is heavily mined and probably booby-trapped, but residents spoke of relatives and friends vanishing into the police station after being taken from their homes. Those that did return came back physically and mentally broken, they said.

And so, as Kherson reopens after eight months of occupation, a picture is emerging of a city subjected to what has apparently become Russia's bloody playbook. Residents gathered in the main square yesterday waving Ukrainian flags signed by soldiers and singing the national anthem, to greet president Volodymyr Zelensky who made a surprise trip from Kyiv.