AFU Colonel With Belarusian Roots Went Through The Most Terrible ‘DPR’s’ Prison

Roman Svitan survived inhuman tortures.

Colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and instructor pilot Roman Svitan is one of the most famous military experts in Ukraine. Charter97.org learned that Col. Svitan has Belarusian roots. His biography also includes captivity in the Izolyatsia prison - the most terrible prison of the “DPR” [the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic - Ed.]:

– I was born in Makiivka in 1964 (a city in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, which has been under Russian occupation since 2014 - Ed.), I saw everything that was happening in Donetsk from the very beginning.

At the age of 17, I entered the Chernigov Flight School. I just went to the land of my ancestors. I was studying, flying, serving as head of the 72nd Air Base of KNAFU [Kharkiv National University of the Air Force - Ed.]. Later I retired and came back to Donbas.

In 2013, when Yanukovych misbehaved on the Maidan, the Nobody Except Us our Donetsk-Afghan organization was in Kyiv on December 2, 2013.

I returned to Donbas as a military adviser to the governor of the Donetsk region, Sergei Taruta, after the Maidan. The responsibilities were approximately the same as those of the Secretary of the National Security Council, but over the region.

We initially created headquarters in Donbas, like the main headquarters, when the Russians started the invasion. All the security forces joined it: the head of the SSU (the Security Service of Ukraine), the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the head of the National Guard. In general, the entire forces. Naturally, we began to prepare internal resistance: partisan detachments, militia battalions. I stayed in charge of the partisan movement when they completely captured the region.

‘They crushed one of my fingers into 17 pieces’

I was captured by Russian special services. Local Donetsk cops tracked me down and handed me over to the GRU [Russian military intelligence - Ed.]. Those who were part of the counteraction headquarters. Almost all of them went over to the Russian side.

Eight machine gunners arrested me, breaking my big toes with their butts so that I wouldn’t run away. I still have trouble walking. One of my fingers was crushed into 17 pieces.

They brought me to Izolyatsia, where they tortured me for several days, using all the GRU instruments: they cut my thigh with daggers, pushed needle under my fingernail, gouged out my eyes and ran a soldering iron over my body. They even used “truth drugs”.

They were trying to beat information out of me but the good thing is that we carried out our partisan activity in such a way that they already knew some things about me (I was quite public), but what they didn’t know, I didn’t know myself. Partisan activity as such does not make it possible to know who is below you in level. I knew my direct supervisor, but I didn't know the whole group members. It was important for them to extort something about our partisan activities, but how can they extort something from me if I just don’t know? In general, they were cutting me, sewing me up and cutting again. The worst thing was when they broke my teeth with a soldering iron and heated up the nerves.

The local Doctor Mengele - Yuri Evich - took part in all tortures. He kept me conscious when sewing me. By the way, he described all these tortures that took place there in a book. Now, if you search “Yuri Yevych, Colonel Svitan” in Google, you can see links to his descriptions.

Once I even died on the torture table, when they had already cut through my thigh to the artery, the blood flowed out. I suffered clinical death, but Evich rescued me.

By the way, they even reported Putin about me, saying that they had taken the “great strategist” of Donbas. Then the so-called Prime Minister of the “DPR”, Russian citizen Aleksandr Boroday (now a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from the United Russia political party) came to Izolyatsia and interrogated me personally.

Moreover, usually, everyone else was either wearing masks, or I had a bag over my head. Boroday did not have a mask during the interrogation, and they took a bag off head. Everyone else was wearing masks.

At the end of the interrogation, the verdict was shooting. The most interesting thing is that everyone who participated in my arrest was tortured to death in the dungeons, almost everyone is dead, except for a few people and Dr. Evich is one of them. He is still alive.

‘I was needed for an exchange’

In general, my name appeared on a death list. I was already being taken to the cemetery, but on the way, “by order” of one of the leaders of the “DPR” militants, Igor Bezler (Bes), the car with me was intercepted by militants of the Vostok battalion and recaptured. For some time I was at the Vostok base, and then I was transported to Horlivka.

Bezler needed me for an exchange. I was on the list of 15 prisoners who were being prepared to be exchanged for the saboteur Olga Kurygina, she was in our captivity. As a result, I was the first to be released before the exchange, because sepsis hit my wounds and I've been suffering from 40 celsius fever. “He will die anyway. Let them take Svitan,” Bes said.

So I was released from the captivity and came to Dnipro and skillful physicians. They healed me and put me back on my feet. I spent a week in Izolyatsia and a week at Bezler’s in total.

When I got on my feet in Dnipro, I became a military adviser to the governor of the Dnipro region and to the mayor of Dnipro.