22-year-old Yaroslav came to Melitopol from Odesa to visit his parents. Two days after his arrival, on February 26, 2022, the city was occupied by the Russian Armed Forces. By summer, he was detained by the occupiers for unclear reasons and held in terrible conditions in the basement of the local executive committee for almost a day.

In the evening, Yaroslav was driving home from work in his own car when Russian soldiers stopped him to check his documents. While one of the occupiers was conducting the "inspection," a KamAZ truck arrived with a whole squad of soldiers who said they would take Yaroslav away.

"They put me in the 'bobik' minibus where there were already about 15 people, some of them intoxicated. We went to the police station, but before that, we drove around the city for an hour and a half, picking up more people. When we arrived at the police station in the executive committee building, they lined us up and started calling us one by one for identification. One guy asked when they would release us, and the commander hit him in the knee with the end of his rifle. There was a deaf guy in line whose hearing aid was taken away. When they asked him his name and surname and he couldn't hear the question, the occupiers hit him on the back of the head multiple times."

After the data check, Yaroslav was placed in a cell. There was one chair, a bucket instead of a toilet, and a bench. There was even propaganda literature, according to Yaroslav, 'about the Bandera followers.' He couldn't fall asleep in the cell.‍

"Another guy was brought into the cell. He felt unwell and kept knocking to be allowed to go to the toilet. The occupiers didn't listen to him, so he had to "go" right in our cell. There were no windows in this room, mold in the corners, very dark. We wanted to eat and drink."

After more than 15 hours since being interrogated and placed in the cell, they began to release people. Yaroslav also started demanding release, knocking on the door, but the Russian soldier hit him hard with his rifle. He said they would release him when they needed to. A few hours later, Yaroslav finally got out — they returned all his belongings and his car. His parents had already started looking for him, went to the police station, but the occupiers ignored them.

Six days after being released, Yaroslav left the occupation. He believes he was detained for the sake of numbers — the more people are held in custody, the more effectively the "Russian world" works.

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