Aurelius M. Runwol
Stanisław Asieyev* was a prisoner of the separatists of the Donetsk People's Republic for over 2 and a half years and wrote a book about it. He is besides a veteran of Russia's war against Ukraine since February 24, 2022.
Photo by Stanislav Asieiev – Own Job, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia
DW: How long were you on the front?
Stanisław Asieev: – 9 months, from December 2023 to September 2024. I fought at Pokrowski. After another attack, the Russians took our positions, and I was twice wounded by a part of mine that hit my neck and got into my chest. I was in a infirmary in Kiev for a period and a half. At that time, the Russians destroyed my battalion. And I was demobilized.
Before this war, you were imprisoned in Donetsk, mainly in the Isolation camp, which – as you wrote in your book – 1 of your fellow prisoners called “Donietsk Dachau”.
– It's a very complex subject that I mention to in the title of the book. I compose about the concentration camp, due to the fact that historical associations come here, especially with German Nazi camps. But I always emphasize that the Isolation camp, which inactive exists, is specified a concentration camp as the Nazi camps of the 1930s. This is not a death camp where human demolition would occur. He holds those who endanger the alleged Donetsk People's Republic or the Russian regime.
What else is the reason to call this concentration camp? Torture?
- No doubt. Above all, however, the very fact of concentrating enemies of the regime. Including her, volunteers from the alleged scorns, or militias fighting on the side of Russia, who at any point became a threat to her. But yes, there was electrical torture, rape, and even killing of prisoners. Both men and women, due to the fact that women were besides there, but for separate purposes. We haven't heard from them.
Where did the name Isolation come from?
– This is the site of an old insulation mill that was called this. (In 2010 the centre of modern Isolation was established in its walls, which, after being occupied by the Russians in 2014, was moved to Kiev – a part of Donbas).
Where does it fit?
– In the very centre of Donetsk, on 3 Light Road. That is why the book is entitled “The Holy Way”. It is the name of the street, inactive from russian times, allusion to Lenin's words about the shining way to communism. In the space of the russian Union, many streets bear this name.
But in Donetsk, the Light Road became hell.
How many people were there erstwhile you were trapped?
– We don't have that kind of data. During the time I was there, there were 80 beds in Isolation and theoretically it was the maximum number of prisoners. But you can sleep on the level there. If the targets were filled this way, it could have been there and 200 or possibly even 300 people.
How many people have you been sitting with?
– At first, I went to the basement, a immense bomb bunker. There were 10 of us. Then in cells where there were 4 to 17 prisoners too me.
Could you go for a walk?
Just for 5 minutes.
Five minutes a day?
- 5 minutes a day. And a bag on your head. Longer were the exits for forced labour in the industrial area.
What kind of jobs?
- Different. Cutting metallic to scrap, washing cars and tanks. And the snowing in the winter. In a place like this, you do everything you're told.
And the camp staff? Who are these people?
– Here again appear parallels with Nazi Germans, with their camps. due to the fact that present we know who works in the Isolation Administration, we know names, names, families. Most are average people. They have kids, they walk them to school, they have wives. But erstwhile they close the doors of Isolation behind them and enter its territory, their psyche changes completely. They become psychopaths, pathological sadists. The prisoners have no inhibitions. While I was sitting there, they were local police personnel who switched to Russia in 2014. There was besides 1 Russian, but besides, it was local.
You say anything about torture?
– At the time, the main method of torture was electrical current. They utilized “taps”, russian field phones with induction coils. You must have seen them in russian war movies. erstwhile you had to call, you would choice up the telephone and spin the crank. Then the electricity flowed through the wires and the bell rang on the another side.
In the Isolation of the ‘tap’, another applications apply. That's where the wires are connected to the prisoner. They attached them to my thumb and to my ear. And they were spinning the crank. That's erstwhile the power flows through the body. That's how they torture you.
How hard can it be?
– It's very painful. And at the same time you gotta answer questions, due to the fact that not only do they torture you, but they question you. erstwhile you have a wire attached to your ear, your facial muscles shrink and you can't talk normally. You talk vaguely, and they beat.
Could you have imagined before that something like this was even possible?
- No, I don't. Donbas and business I worked professionally for 3 years, from 2014 to 2017. But I couldn't imagine the scale of this underground world, these basements that I found myself in, these tortures.
The Lord described this planet in his book.
– It's a very interesting story. I started writing in the basement of the Ministry of State Security, where I was kept for the first period and a half in a one-man cell. I found any cardboard box, a part of pencil, and I started writing down my intellectual experiences.
Then they took me to Isolation, and they told me they didn't care what I was dischargeing. I took a tiny number of manuscripts out of the camp during the prisoner exchange. They became the basis of this book. I finished writing at large.
You wanted to compose about Isolation in a neutral way, not as her prisoner, but as an outsider. Any luck?
– Sometimes I even hear allegations that I wrote this book from the position of an outside observer. That she's cool, calm, that terrible things describe without emotion. But that was my job. If I wrote emotionally, the effect would be different. In the meantime, I wanted to tell people what was going on there, in a language as understandable as possible. That's why I wrote like an observer, who kind of looks at all this nonsense from the side.
Did this book go to Ukrainian justice? How about the global Criminal Court in The Hague?
– The book is already translated into 12 languages, including Polish, English, French, German, Latvian, Lithuanian, and is now translated into Georgian. We have unfortunately already given it to Pope Francis, Hillary Clinton, many presidents and prime ministers.
He inactive plays an crucial role. Thanks to it, the Ministry of abroad Affairs of Ukraine launched a task in 2021 Isolation Must Speak (Isolation Must Speak), which utilized English and another versions of the book to condemn war crimes committed in occupied territories.
You besides started a foundation that deals with these crimes. How?
– The Justice Initiative Fund was founded after being released from Isolation. He deals with the search for Russian war criminals, offers a wage for information about them.
We make lists of people officially suspected by our lawyer General or global courts of committing war crimes. These crimes are divided into categories: Isolation, MH17, Bucha, or Mariupol. Each of them contains a list of suspects officially, and we offer money for current information about these people. erstwhile we get them, we hand them over to our peculiar services and account for the informant.
When did the foundation start?
– After a full-scale Russian assault of 2022, but the search for war criminals began 8 years earlier. The ellipse of our interests includes everyone who committed crimes from 2014 to today.
How many are there?
– For present a small over 300, 312. We know that there are thousands who have committed crimes, but we only deal with those officially prosecuted and brought to justice. And these are a couple hundred.
Under the name of all individual we place on our website, we supply a link to the authoritative source, whether it's the D.A. or the safety services, with an authoritative charge. We're doing this so we don't get accused of blaming random people.
Who are you working with? In the country and abroad.
- With the Ukrainian lawyer General. Without her, we would have achieved nothing. At global level so far, with no one.
I think it was hard being in this camp, but it's besides not easy doing what you're doing right now.
– You know, this is my job. If I'd taken it personally, I'd just go crazy. due to the fact that erstwhile I open the website of our foundation, I see people beating me up all day. And besides, I'm a veteran who was on the front. That is why I have made Russian war criminals the subject of my work, which I approach as cold as possible.
What would you like to do in the future?
– compose another book about my experience at the front, at war. In a minute I will be in Hamburg, where I participate in a program for erstwhile political prisoners and deal with the war crimes of Russia, which unfortunately continues to commit them. I am besides a military expert, as a man who served in the infantry and understands what happens on the front, on the battlefield.
Thank you so much for this conversation.
