Vladislav said he was taken to a location being used as a prison in Vasylivka, where he was kept for more than 40 days in a single cell before being transferred to a hotel for his last month in captivity.

“They had me working washing the floor of the room they used for interrogations, cleaning officers’ rooms and throwing out the trash. The cell where I was kept was a few metres from where they did the interrogations. I could hear people shouting, and when I cleaned the room I could see bloodstains. Because I could move around when I was cleaning cells, I sometimes had the chance to see what had happened to people and they could sometimes talk to me for a minute or so when the guards weren’t watching.”

Vladislav described the room where the interrogations took place: “There was a metal table and two chairs. One was for the person being questioned and the other was for the person taking notes.

“There were bloodstains and soaked bandages. I could hear the questioning too, at least three times week. ‘Do you have weapons? Who else has weapons?’ They were shouting and the people being tortured were yelling really loudly.