The rector of the church in the village of Tokarivka, Ihor Novosilskyi, on the third day of the full-scale invasion rescued 12 Ukrainian soldiers who had been encircled on the left bank of Kherson region. The priest at night ferried the fighters by boats across the Dnipro, hid them in the church basement, fed them and helped them leave for Mykolaiv unnoticed. For this, the Russians held him captive for 262 days.
This is reported by the Media Initiative for Human Rights.
Ihor Novosilskyi was detained in August 2022. In captivity he was forced to learn the Russian anthem and to shout occupation slogans.
For almost nine months Father Ihor was moved from one torture site to another — from Kherson to Hola Prystan and Chaplynka.
“The conditions of detention were inhumane: in cramped cells without water or toilets people slept two to a bed, and received food only once a day from what the Russian soldiers had not finished. The most terrifying ordeal was electric shock torture with a ‘tapik’, from which, according to the priest, the prisoners’ teeth cracked,” — the article says.
Earlier we wrote that in Kherson region in cases about torture sites created by the occupiers, 15 people were charged.