I survived three days of torture at hands of Russian soldiers: They electrocuted my genitals for four hours and put me in a 'glass room' so everyone could watch me screaming

A light flickered at the end of the dark corridor, illuminating a single wooden door that had been bolted shut. 

Olexiy, bloodied and with his hands tied behind his back, was pushed towards that door from which the piercing cries became louder and louder. 

His heart pounding, it was at this moment that Olexiy recognised an all too familiar voice — one that had been welcoming him home for years. 

Legs buckling beneath him, he realised it was the screams of his friend and neighbour Roman he could hear.

'I felt dead in that moment,' Olexiy says, his voice faltering as he remembers what the Russian soldiers did. 'It wasn't like screams I'd ever heard before.'

Just days earlier, the two friends had helped each other put their nation's blue and yellow flags along their street in Kherson to mark Ukraine's Independence Day on 24 August 2022 in a defiant stand against the men who had terrorised them and their neighbours for more than six months. 

But the Russian soldiers had found them, raiding their homes the next morning.

In the days, weeks and months that followed, Olexiy and Roman would be beaten to within an inch of their lives, tortured with electrical shocks to their ears and genitals, waterboarded and have guns placed on their temples as part of mock executions.

The two men are now sharing their stories with MailOnline to show the reality of Vladimir Putin's war and to dispel any notion that the war crimes they witnessed and endured for months are too horrific to be real.

The first to be taken was Roman, 38. He remembers how the Russians, armed with guns, barged into his home where his wife, 10-year-old daughter, elderly mother and sister were living. They began rifling through his belongings, breaking glass and furniture as they went - all while the family watched in utter terror. 

With bated breath, Roman saw the soldiers find his phone where he knew he had pictures of himself and Olexiy standing arm-in-arm next to the Ukrainian flags they had put up. 

'They found the pictures and a conversation with my sister in which I had called the Russian soldiers "Orcs",' Roman tells MailOnline from his home in Kherson. 'They didn't like that,' he said, twisting his hands in his lap.

Roman, who worked as a taxi driver before Russia launched its full-scale invasion, recalls how the soldiers grabbed him and marched him out of his home. They hauled him into a waiting car as his heartbroken daughter Violetta cried as she clung to her mother's waist. 

As soon as they put him in the car, Putin's men blindfolded Roman and tied his hands behind his back before they took turns to pummel him with punches in a sickening attack that left Roman with a broken rib. 

Roman knew exactly where they would take him. 'I knew about the torture chamber in Kherson and how the people screamed there,' Roman says, his voice becoming quiet. 

The father-of-one remembers how the car took a sharp left turn and skidded on the gravel before coming to a sudden stop. Then the door opened. 

His blindfold now wet from the blood seeping from the huge gash on his head, Roman was pulled out of the car by the soldiers and marched towards a building, his feet dragging on the gravel before he was taken down a set of stairs where a door was opened and closed behind him. 

Roman would later learn they dragged him into a room the Ukrainian prisoners called the 'glass room' because of its large windows on one end, through which the other inmates were unable to avoid seeing their fellow countrymen be tortured as they screamed in pain.

It was here in this dark room with the yellow chair that Roman was tortured for three days.

'On the first day, they attached electrical currents to my ears. The power from the electrical shock was so powerful that it threw me out of my chair,' Roman says, recalling how some prisoners he knew broke their legs after being thrown from the chair.

'Then on the second day, they put electrical currents to my genitals,' Roman says, his face grimacing at the thought of what the Russians did to him with the Dynamo machine. 

'I can't even describe the pain. It's like nothing I've ever felt,' he says, twisting his hands uncomfortably and looking away. Roman later suffered from hallucinations. 

'The Russians said torturing us with electrical shocks was "humane" because it didn't leave marks on the body,' he adds while shaking his head. 

He says on the third day, the snarling Russian soldiers dragged Roman from his cell and dragged him to the room with the yellow chair again. They sat him down and asked him what his favourite method of torture was.

A smile reaches Roman's face as he says: 'I joked with them and said, "How could I possibly choose one method when it's so enjoyable".' 

But he looks down as he remembers what the Russian soldiers did to him then. 'They pulled my head back and began waterboarding me. Whilst they were doing this, one of them took a knife and started to stab my leg,' he says. 

'I don't know how long the torture would go on for, time had no meaning then.'

As the Russian soldiers beat, electrocuted and waterboarded Roman over those three days, they would constantly threaten to kidnap his family and bring them to the torture chamber. 

'They said they would torture all of my family,' Roman says, his hands shaking as he takes a drag of his cigarette. 

All he could think about while the Russian soldiers tortured his body and mind was his family and seeing them again. 'I have four women at home - my mother, my wife, my daughter and sister - I knew I had to come back to them and survive for them.'  

After those three days, Roman was thrown into a cell on the second floor with nine others. Here, he would sleep on a piece of cardboard and use a bottle for a pillow. 

He says the worst thing about the torture cell was the sound of the men and women screaming in agony and the crunching of their bones — those screams still replay in his mind when he closes his eyes to sleep. 

'I could hear the screams of those being tortured on the first floor every single day,' Roman says. 'It was the most horrific and terrible noise. For two months, I heard the screams of other people.'

It was Roman's screams of pure agony that Olexiy heard on the day he was dragged into the torture chamber and along the dark corridors towards the wooden door.

'There was a room that had been bolted shut but inside I could hear the screams of about five people inside. It wasn't like screams I'd ever heard. They were hysterical. And then I heard the scream of my friend Roman.' 

When asked about how this made him feel, Olexiy looked down at his hands, unable to speak. And then quietly, he says: 'In three words, I felt dead.' 

Before, the two friends would often joke together while sharing a beer outside their neighbouring homes — it was the only thing that kept them sane when the bombs began raining down on them and the men with guns rolled into their city on tanks.

But their laughter was soon replaced by the sounds of their cries as they were beaten and electrocuted within an inch of their lives. 

Olexiy was tortured for four days by the Russian soldiers. 'They beat me all over my body with their fists, they kicked me and beat me with sticks,' Olexiy says. 'They would constantly point guns at my head saying they were going to shoot me.' 

'And then they would put electrical shocks from a military field phone on my ears and genitals,' Olexiy says, his voice becoming quiet, as he recounted how the shocks continued for an hour with only 30-second breaks. 'The pain was indescribable.'

'The Russian soldiers would call the machine their "detector of lies" because they thought I would tell them everything that I knew,' he says. 

But Olexiy said he knew he had to 'hold on' and not tell them anything about how he'd previously helped the Ukrainian military or secretly delivered food and supplies to his neighbours in Kherson. 

'The torture was like playing with death,' Olexiy says. 'If they knew the truth of how I'd helped the Ukrainian military, I wouldn't be sitting in front of you now.' 

After four days, the torture stopped and Olexiy was pushed into a cell with eight others where he had no idea what would happen to him. 

Both Roman and Olexiy say the soldiers forced the prisoners to learn the words of the Russian national anthem and sing on cue whenever they banged on their cell doors. 

'If someone didn't know the words, they would be electrocuted and tortured,' Roman says.

The beatings and torture were so horrific that one of Roman's cellmates, a man in his 50s named Ihor, died, he said.  'He didn't wake up. They hadn't let him sleep for the first three days and tortured him,' Roman says. 'We all thought we'd end up like that.' 

Roman would be kept in this 'hellhole' for two months before he was released by some stroke of luck. He says all of his cellmates were gathered outside the torture facility one day and the Russian soldiers put 64 prisoners in two vehicles. 

'There was no place for me,' Roman says, explaining that he feared they would shoot him dead. 'But I escaped. And at that moment, I didn't feel happiness or relief.'

'I felt incredibly scared because I understood the Russian soldiers could return to his home and take me to prison again and torture me. There were no thoughts about freedom or happiness,' Roman explains. 

Days later, Olexiy was bundled into a car and taken to a police station where the Russian soldiers told him he had to sign documents. 'They wanted to take me to occupied Russian territory,' Olexiy says, explaining that a bus arrived to take them away. 

But by 21 October, Ukrainian soldiers had closed in on Kherson and were attacking the Russian soldiers there. 'The Russian soldiers started panicking and tried to put everyone on the bus, but there was no place for me and a couple of other prisoners,' Olexiy says. 

'The soldiers left me there and I managed to escape. They were in a panic and were burning documents.' 

While Roman felt no happiness or relief when he was released, Olexiy says that for him, he 'felt free in that moment'. 

Olexiy raced home, eager to see his beloved wife again after so many months away. 

'She flung open the door,' Olexiy says, smiling. 'She was so surprised to see me again. She thought I'd been killed. I felt such a sense of euphoria at being able to hold her again and hear her voice.' 

In the first hour back at home, Olexiy had his first bath and haircut in months. He and his wife also burned his bloodied clothes. 

But nothing could erase what had happened to Olexiy and Roman.   

When asked about the impact his time in detention had on his health, Olexiy looks down and is silent for a few moments. 

Olexiy, his face gaunt, says: 'It's had a very bad impact on my life. My health has become very bad. The electric shocks have given me heart problems and I already had issues with my health before. 

'It's like I've started a second life. There's nothing good anymore. Nothing brings me happiness anymore.' 

His hands resting on his lap, Olexiy adds: 'The Russians bring no good here. I was a sailor before the war and I've lost my job, they've destroyed my life along with millions of other Ukrainians.'

But Olexiy said he's been moved moved by the amount of support from the UK and other Western countries in terms of solidarity and the deployment of weapons to Ukraine. 

'I am so grateful to the British people for their solidarity and support of Ukrainians,' Olexiy says. 

For Roman, he says it's hard to put into words how the months of torture have impacted his life. 

'It's completely changed me, the impact is huge,' Roman says. 'I feel on edge and scared all the time. I still have nightmares about the torture and what they did to me. I sleep very badly.' 

Roman, who now delivers humanitarian aid to families living near the frontlines, says that the shelling of Kherson by Russian forces re-traumatises him constantly. 'It brings back the trauma because it makes me panic and scared again,' Roman explains.

'This has become the reality for Ukrainians,' Roman says. 'The fact that we have survived through these really terrible things is a reflection of how incredible Ukrainian people are.' 

Roman, smiling now, adds: 'We've survived by having a sense of humour, my jokes keep me sane. The Russians can never take that away from us.' 

But both Roman and Olexiy realise there are hundreds more Ukrainians like them who were never able to escape the Russians and their torture chambers. 

'I always think about the people in captivity in occupied territories,' Olexiy says. 'I can't imagine what they are suffering.' 

He says that he wanted to share what happened to him to show what those in captivity will be suffering and facing every day at the hands of Russian soldiers.

Olexiy says: 'There will be thousands of Ukrainians in captivity at this moment. And we can't reach them. I think about them often. 

'I wanted to show, by sharing my story, what they will be suffering every single day.'