Oleksandr Kuchai
Oleksandr Kuchai
Date of abduction: March 19, 2022
Place of abduction: Khocheva village, Kyiv region
Oleksandr Kuchai is a resident of Prybirsk, Kyiv region. Before the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, the man was making repairs to order, and since February 24, 2022, he has been under occupation. On March 19, Oleksandr and several fellow villagers went to the neighboring village of Khocheva to find communication and inform his family that he was alive. However, on their way back, they were stopped by Russian soldiers who checked the men’s tattoos and phones and accused them of filming Russian military equipment. Because of this, the Ukrainians were abducted. Oleksandr Kuchai’s parents went to the enemy checkpoint for several days in a row – the captors said they had taken the men to the Chornobyl nuclear power plant and from there to Belarus. They promised that they would return them home in a few days. However, this did not happen. Later, Kuchai’s mother, Olena, learned from the released prisoners that the Russians had illegally detained her son in SIZO No. 1 in Novozibkov, Bryansk Oblast, Russia. There, they burned prisoners’ tattoos, tortured them with electricity, beat them, forced them to sing the Russian national anthem, did not allow them to sit on their beds during the day, and fed them poorly. One of the prisoners lost his tongue as a result of torture, and some died due to inhumane conditions. In the same year, Oleksandr was transferred from Novozybkiv to penal colony No. 1 in Donskoy, Tula region. There, Russians also torture Ukrainians and force them to sing the Russian anthem. In addition, for more than two years of captivity, the captors have not given Oleksandr Kuchai a single letter from his family. For almost a year, Olena has not known anything about her son’s fate.
This publication was compiled with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. It’s content is the exclusive responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the International Renaissance Foundation.
