Russian “liberators” take the best ones: Oleksandr Panchenko, a pro-Ukrainian activist, told the documenters of the Association about his experience of being in captivity of the occupiers.

Oleksandr worked in the police and after retirement became a lawyer at a local neuropsychiatric residential facility. Before the occupation, in his spare time, he was engaged in gardening Prymorsk and organized subotnyks (days of volunteer unpaid work on Saturdays). When the city was occupied, its most active residents began to go to rallies with Ukrainian flags. Oleksandr was among these activists. Later, Oleksandr was one of the organizers of the “night patrol” – people organized themselves and protected Prymorsk from looting and theft.

“On April 21, 2022, I and my colleagues on patrol met at my home and discussed that this activity should be terminated. The occupiers gave us information through a collaborator that if we wanted to continue working, we had to give them a list of people involved in the ‘night patrol’. We didn’t want to do that and decided that that week was the last one when we were working.”

As soon as Oleksandr and his friends left the house, they were detained – two cars with the occupiers were already standing outside the house. The russians took the men to a checkpoint at a gas station, where the commandant came out to Panchenko.

“I told the commandant that I was the head of the Primorsk branch of the Red Cross. When the commandant heard this, he immediately became mad and hit me. After that, I was taken to a small utility room at the gas station and put in a box with brooms and mops. One could only stand in it, and I spent half an hour there.”

Next, there was a raid on Oleksandr’s home, where he was taken with a sack over his head. In the man’s bag, they found a power of attorney from a volunteer to deliver humanitarian aid to the military unit. This was enough for the occupiers to put the activist back in the box, where he spent 24 hours this time. When he was taken for interrogation, he was asked questions about his volunteer activities. They hit Oleksandr several times on the head.

Later, the detained activist was taken to a building in Solomiansky district of Prymorsk. Then a representative of the FSB came to him. Oleksandr was asked where the weapons from the police station were. The volunteer naturally did not know. He was threatened with being doused with engine oil and set on fire, and was beaten on the head with a stick.

“They took me to the police station on Zhukovskoho Street and put me in a cell. They placed a homeless man in the cell, whom I asked to secretly deliver a letter to my wife, tell her where I was and ask for medicine. He was released on the sixth day and he did as I asked. My wife finally knew where I was, during my absence she had already visited colony No. 77 in Berdiansk, looking for my trail”.

After 10 days in Prymorsk, Oleksandr was taken to Berdiansk to the district police station. There, he was interrogated by people who called themselves “investigation operatives” and asked about his ties to the police, military and about weapons caches. Having realized that the civilian activist did not have this information, they returned Oleksandr to Prymorsk and released on May 7. When the russians said goodbye to him, they invited him to come to the “holiday” on May 9 with a red flag. Later, he with his family got out of the occupation and now continues to volunteer at the children’s hub “Warm Palms”.