Kathrine Frich
Chaos ruled occupied southern Ukraine In the early weeks of the invasion.
Protesters filled the streets, Russian troops scrambled to assert control, and civilians began to disappear.
One journalist’s story offers a rare glimpse inside those first days of fear.
Seized in Kakhovka
Oleh Baturyn, an investigative journalist from Kakhovka, was captured on March 12, 2022, less than three weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
He had been lured to a bus station by a fellow blogger, only to be surrounded by Russian National Guard soldiers and thrown into a van.
As a precaution, he had left his phone and documents at home, a decision he believes saved both his life and his sources.
He was taken to City Hall in Nova Kakhovka, which Russian forces had turned into a makeshift interrogation site.
There, he faced questioning by Vladimir Leontiev, the Kremlin-installed mayor, and Valentin Matuzhenko, a fighter from the pro-Russian DNR militia.
Targeted for reporting
The interrogation followed Baturyn’s recent reporting on Leontiev, whom he had described as corrupt.
The article included a compromising photograph of Leontiev dressed in a Nazi uniform during a historical reenactment.
According to Baturyn, the new mayor reacted with fury. During the first interrogation, Leontiev threatened to kill him and dismember his body.
Later that evening, Baturyn was transferred to a local police station along with other detained protesters.
Beatings and terror
Inside the station, detainees were forced to stand spread-eagled against a wall. Guards beat anyone who moved.
Baturyn described how a teenage boy was singled out and brutally assaulted with rifle butts.
The guards staged mock executions, firing blank rounds while telling the boy he would be killed next.
“There was a click, but it was a blank shot,” Baturyn recalled, describing the screams and laughter that followed.
Baturyn himself was beaten and suffered four broken ribs. His captors were enraged that he carried no phone.
Kherson detention site
The next day, he was transferred to Kherson and interrogated by an FSB officer seeking information about journalists, veterans and officials.
After being forced to sign a pledge to cooperate, he was taken to a detention center on Teploenerhetykiv Street.
According to Ukrainian prosecutors, the site later became one of more than 20 detention and torture facilities used during the occupation.
Thousands of civilians are believed to have passed through similar centers.
Baturyn shared a cell with an older man and was repeatedly beaten and starved.
He said he heard the screams of other prisoners, including a woman being raped in a neighboring cell.
Survival and release
Among the detainees were also foreign nationals, including a Spanish aid worker and a sick Dutch man.
Guards regularly beat them during interrogations.
Baturyn said the psychological pressure was constant, with captors telling him he had been forgotten.
Remembering his role as a journalist helped him endure.
After eight days, on March 20, he was unexpectedly released and dumped outside Kakhovka.
He fled with his family days later. Reflecting on his ordeal, he said he survived only because Russia’s system of repression was still taking shape.
Sources: Daily Express, Ukrainian prosecutors
