RFE/RL journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko has given the first detailed account of how he was tortured after being arrested in Russian-occupied Crimea in 2021.
Speaking with RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, Radio Svaboda (Radio Liberty) in his first interview since being released from Russian custody in June, Yesypenko described how beatings and electrocution were used to force him to sign a confession that he later retracted in court.
"First they beat you, then they turn on the current, them they beat you again, and then they turn on the current. And while following this sequence, they are asking questions," he said.
"I said: Guys, stop it and I'll sign whatever you need. If you say I killed Kennedy, OK, I killed Kennedy. But please stop the torture."
Yesypenko, a dual Russian-Ukrainian citizen, was a freelance contributor to Crimea.Realities, a regional news outlet of Radio Liberty. He was released from Russian custody more than four years after being detained on suspicion of collecting information for Ukrainian intelligence, a charge he denied.
In the interview, Yesypenko recalled the moment of his arrest on March 10, 2021. He said he was stopped by traffic police while driving a friend in Crimea. But almost immediately, agents from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) appeared and forced him to the ground.
FSB video of the arrest shows a grenade lying on the floor by the driver's seat in the car that Yesypenko says was planted there. It was used as a key piece of evidence in the case against him.
Several months later, Yesypenko was charged with "possession and transport of explosives," though prosecutors later admitted the grenade "discovered" in his vehicle did not bear his fingerprints.
Yesypenko said that after his arrest he was blindfolded, handcuffed, driven away, and taken to a basement. It was here that the torture began.
"I realized that, well, I was not a hero at this point. I simply wanted to live. I wanted it to end as fast as possible. That was all," he said.
"At that moment it didn't matter (what I signed). I realized that right now, I need to survive."
'They're Looking For You Everywhere'
A day or two later, Yesypenko was visited by a Russian-appointed lawyer named Violetta Sinyeglazova who sought to ensure that he signed the false confession prepared for him.
"She said if we do this today, if you sign, the court will view it as an extenuating circumstance when it passes sentence," he recalled.
Several days later, at a pretrial detention center, he found himself less closely guarded by FSB officers and was able to approach a lawyer who had come to see other detainees.
"She said, 'So you're Yesypenko. They're looking for you everywhere -- your wife and lawyers. It's great that you've turned up."
The following day, an independent defense lawyer arrived and Yesypenko signed a statement saying he was ditching Sinyeglazova in favor of a new legal team.
On March 18, eight days after his arrest, Yesypenko gave an interview to a state TV channel called Crimea-24. It was, he said, one of the conditions of his forced confession.
The FSB gave him a script to learn, which he had to repeat in the interview, Yesypenko said. This included saying, falsely, that the grenade in the car was his.
"They needed to compromise Radio Liberty and Crimea.Realities. They tried to show the whole world that people working for Radio Liberty were also spies," he said.
Taking The Leap 'Across An Abyss'
The trial was set to begin on April 6. But Yesypenko said he was visited several days before by an FSB officer called Major Korovin, who offered him cigarettes and sought to ensure Yesypenko would stick to the script in court.
Korovin said Yesypenko's wife and other lawyers would be in the courtroom but that he must work only with Sinyeglazova. Yesypenko agreed, but he was lying.
"I realized that it was liked leaping across an abyss. You don't know if you'll make it or not," Yesypenko said.
"The whole time I was making the confession, I felt really bad. It was like betraying everything you hold dearest, betraying everything you could. I realized that if I didn't make it, I still had to try."
In court, Yesypenko took the leap. Departing from the script, he announced that he had been tortured, that everything that had happened to him had been illegal, and that he was switching to the independent defense team.
"It was a shock for the judges and it was a shock for the prosecutors because the trial was supposed to follow a certain route," he said.
Days later, the US State Department demanded Yesypenko's release and joined concerns already voiced by human rights groups over his treatment.
But he was not released. For the next several months, court hearings continued, and Yesypenko said he was pressured to cooperate with threats of further torture.
In February 2022, a Russian-appointed court in Crimea sentenced him to six years in prison on charges of "possession and transport of explosives," which he, his employer, and human rights groups denounced as fabricated.
The highest Moscow-controlled court in Crimea later reduced Yesypenko's sentence to five years in prison.
Shortly after his release on June 20, he boarded a flight to Yerevan, Armenia. "It was very emotional. I realized: I'm free, it's over. It was like being born again," he said.
From Armenia, he traveled to Prague where he met his family, and then returned to Ukraine.
"When we entered the railway station in Kyiv, I saw the city, the hustle and bustle. I realized I was home."
