After the outbreak of the large-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, MBA teacher and business consultant Oleh Moskalenko managed to take his family outside Ukraine. Upon returning home, he was captured by the Russians. Oleh was beaten and tortured, and then, handcuffed, he was left to freeze to death.
He lost several fingers and part of his foot due to frostbite and injuries. He lay in a pit for two days, and then in a cellar. Having endured that butcherly torture, Oleh miraculously survived thanks to another fellow prisoner.
It seemed to be some kind of a fairy tale for me. Yes, because this was something that could never happen in real life. Basically, by my education and background, I am an engineer, analyst, and businessman, after all, and this just could not happen in any of my predictions and estimates. And to be honest, when the shelling began, it was some kind of déjà vu. I simply could not believe that I was right there and that this particular thing was happening to me.
At that time, we were in our own house, literally a few days before the real shelling started. We also sheltered our friends because they were leaving Kyiv then, they were running away. And it was something extraordinary when the shelling between the [Ukrainian] Armed Forces and the invaders began, and we were between them. It was something unsurpassed, especially when mines began to fall and houses were smashed.
We lived only on the news. We watched what was happening in Ukraine. As I said, no one believed it.
But then the moment came when the shelling, mines, tank rounds, all that was close by, above our houses.
We sheltered our acquaintances from Kyiv and thought that there would be some events in Kyiv, and that everything would be quiet at our place, but we were deeply mistaken.
On 4 March, we had a whole settlement, about 300 inhabitants. The moment came when two mines landed near us and hit two houses – there was nothing left of the house in a matter of seconds. And we had some idea in mind… well, our way of thinking was like: well, once the shelling begins, we can make it to the cellar, stay there and, basically, wait it out there. But in fact this was not the case, because in case of a mine attack the mine just flies in, you don’t hear it, you don’t see it – and there is no house left anymore. We organized the guarding of our settlement. As I said, it was about 300 houses. Well, there were a lot of people too. But when the settlement came under direct shelling attacks, thank goodness, there were no casualties. When I saw what it was like when a 120-millimetre mine landed – well, nothing, there was nothing left of a house, I decided that we just had to leave.
At that moment, our younger daughter, my wife and I were in the house (our elder daughter lives and works in the United Arab Emirates, which is why there were only three of us). It was at the time when a house in the settlement was destroyed by shelling. I came home, I returned from the guarding shift in the settlement. So I came home and said to my girls, “Get ready, we are leaving.”
The next morning, at 9 o’clock, half of the settlement was going to leave, but my car and 10 other neighbours – just 10 more cars together with me – we were the first ones to reach the Zhytomyr highway. Well it was… it was something… I don’t know what it could be compared to. The whole road was… (Bayraktars were already in use at the time.)
My goal was to take my family out, because I wanted my wife and daughter to leave Ukraine. They left for Poland and I decided to go back, as there were many questions relating to my business and defence issues, there were just a lot of issues, and I had a lot of people who depended on me or were tied to me, so to speak. So I was going back. The way back took a long time. On my way back, I went to Lviv to visit my friends, and then I called in Khmelnytskyi.
Between the villages of Yasnohorodka and Motyzhyn, I was driving the car myself and I was dressed in civilian clothes, I was travelling as a civilian. I passed the village of Yasnohorodka, which was just after the shelling attack. By the way, there is news that there was either a rocket attack in Yasnohorodka or something else.
I noticed that a gas substation had been destroyed and something was burning there. I was passing by and thinking, “Wow, this is what happens here.”
I turned from Yasnohorodka to Motyzhyn according to GPS, and literally somewhere between these two villages (I can’t say for sure now), I was going down the hill, then driving up, and saw some fallen trees lying on the ground, on one side and the other. Notably, one tree was on top of the other. To be honest, I did not understand it then.
I thought, “Well, who knows why they fell down. I’ll drive up now, skip around and will move on.” As I approached them and pressed the brakes, a man dressed in green rose up from the left. It was an enemy soldier, an occupier. That was a subversive group, and at this moment, when he said, “Hey, get out,” I don’t remember the exact words. I saw that from my left side and to the right… well, maybe this is my picture of the world where “the military fight with the military, and if you are a civilian, you have nothing to do with it.”
Those people on my right and on my left were just holding me at gunpoint. Obviously they ordered me to get out of the car and I got out. I just lay down on the ground in front of the car. I lay there for an hour and a half. They searched the car from top to bottom. That is, they examined the car all over. All the time, I had our national symbols on me, on my clothes. That is, I had the Ukrainian flag on my shoulders, and I had an inscription saying “Ukraine”, that kind of things.
As soon as I got out, they put some black sack on my head. In fact, I did not see anything all the time while I was in captivity. I was blindfolded, with a sack put on my head.
When they examined the car, every inch of it, they found the Ukrainian flag I had there. “Are you a benderovite? Why do you wear this? Why have you put it on?” And so on. When they said all this, imagine that it was accompanied by beating, a plain beating, while they were examining there and searching my car. Certainly, there was nothing there but my own belongings.
About an hour or a little more than an hour later, they lifted me up by the arms, handcuffed me, and with that bag on my head, they took me somewhere. Clearly, no one paid close attention to me there. I lost my sneakers, which I had on my feet. That is, they just slipped off, and naturally, no one picked them up. And the beating continued all the time. When I was evacuated to Germany later, I saw my photo – I just could not recognize myself because my body was of blue colour.
From the head to the heels, as it turned out. I think they were escorting me like that some three kilometres, according to my estimate. And the beating continued.
“Hey you, benderovite, tell us where your formations are and why you are driving here?” I said, “I am a civilian. I was just driving there,” and so on.
Well, it all did not work. I was thrown into a pit in the ground, some two meters deep, and before that, I was beaten again certainly. That is, you stand with a bag on your head, with handcuffs behind your back, and you are just beaten, you are just being beaten to death, and then thrown into this pit. Notably, I was almost naked. Well, I had some T-shirt on, and I was barefoot.
The nights were still frosty. It ended with something like this: some fingers were amputated on one hand, some fingers were shortened on the other hand, and as for my feet, (I will not show you my feet), just believe me. One third of my foot was also amputated. One foot is shorter now. And I do not have all my toes on the other foot. I am after a surgery now; I was discharged literally just yesterday, because I couldn’t…
As I spent two days… well, I literally lay in that pit, curled up and beaten. After two days, I was taken out and I don’t know on what vehicle they transported me, because I was blindfolded all the time. I was transported somewhere and thrown into a cellar, just a real cellar with water at the bottom. We identified this later with two other guys.
And we were just on the steps. We spent several days there sitting, lying down, and in whatever other position.
Clearly, no one fed us there. In the morning, a security guard opened it and had a look: checked the number of bodies, if everyone was in place, and locked the cellar. I counted the number of people (there were 12 people there), when I was still sitting in the car. It was…, well, from a military point of view, it was a standard sabotage and reconnaissance group. That is, they were armed with a grenade launcher, machine gun and assault rifles. And I certainly did not know their goals, but at that moment, at the very beginning, those were some international units.
There were some bearded men and soldiers without beards, Russians and not Russians, and so on. That is, I can’t say for sure, if those were Kadyrov soldiers or not, or someone else. It was a Russian sabotage group consisting of soldiers of different nationalities. I can put it like this. For two days, while I was kept in the pit, I was taken out for interrogation from time to time. In addition, sometimes they also talked to me right there, while I was in the pit.
The interrogations were conducted by Russians, well, because there were also some Buryats or Kadyrov soldiers or someone else… I had served in the Soviet army, and I know that there is a difference between nationalities. The interrogations were conducted only by Russians, so there were rightly asked questions. They were absolutely logical, they pursued some goal. Another matter was that every time..., well, they did not believe me, that is… They asked, “Do you serve in the army?” I said, “No, I don’t. I was just on the way, travelling, when you saw me…”
And I think, I guess that every time when they didn’t like the answer, they just beat me.
They asked in which unit I served and if I was actually a sniper or not. When they did not have enough arguments, they said, “You are a benderovite. What do you have there? Why did you put those chevrons on? What did you, bastards, thought it out to be? We bring you happiness, we bring you happiness and light, and you, what do you do here?”
That is, if to explain it in Ukrainian, they just got themselves all worked up, while asking something. When receiving an answer that did not satisfy them, they just beat you. If you ask me whether people were beaten up there? They just plainly clubbed us with assault rifle butts and machine-gun butts.
Especially when I was in the pit, down there. Well, I was just mixed with the ground. I could not understand it then.
I said, “Listen, why are you beating me?” I was being beaten to death. That is, they did not care what I said, well, and so on. They were just beating me to death. And in my picture of the world, I could not put it together.
I wanted to say, “Well, look, I did not meet you there with a weapon in my hand. That is, I did not threaten you there. I was driving on a road for civilians.”
And so on, and so forth. Well, like that.
Nobody took off the handcuffs. Only later, when in Germany, they stitched me up, because even part of the skin on my hands died, and they just cut it out here, and just sewed it up… After those several days, we were thrown into another cellar. Another guy was added to that cellar, so there were already four of us. There were some wooden logs inside it. By then I couldn’t walk on my own, I could not get on my feet.
The guys just placed me down there and gave me to drink. I lay there for a day; I would have stayed there for a few more days. But what I forgot to say earlier is that on the first day, when I was detained and put into the pit, all my fingers were cut. It was just torturing. Well, it looked like that, “Well, tell us where your unit is; or tell us if you are a sniper.” I said, “Leave me alone, I am a civilian.” And while interrogating me, they just made a cut, cut my fingers. Well, if in normal life, if in peaceful life you happen to cut your finger, you just wrap it and it heals up.
While in my case, naturally, it was all dirty, as I was in the ground. And when later I was in the cellar, my hands began to rot, they just started to stink. I told them that my hands smelled already. I said, “Either you let us go out or do something with us, because otherwise…” Well, and I had a pain, accordingly. I did not know what happened. I did not know what the mood was and so on, but about an hour and a half later, two occupiers returned. They took me by the arms and also took another guy (his name was Pavlo). They put the two of us in a vehicle and drove somewhere. We travelled some 30-40 kilometres. Well, they took us to some forest.
Even now, I do not know where exactly we were. There was just nothing to the right and nothing to the left. It was just a wild forest. They left us in the woods. It was after midday, maybe at around 4 or 5 o’clock. We just could not get out of there ourselves.
The evenings were still frosty then. They just left us there to die, as we would not be able to get out of there ourselves.
We came to our senses. The other guy’s physical condition was not too bad. He could walk, could do everything there, while I was unable to walk. I just could not walk physically. He was also younger than me and he treated me with respect all the time. He gave me water to drink all the time, because I could not do it myself. He was respectful. And my arms and legs were failing.
He said, “Oleh Oleksandrovych, let’s try to walk.”
We walked about 900 meters, well, maybe up to a kilometre in one direction. I realized that I could not walk more. I just could not stand on my feet and walk because my feet were frostbitten.
“Let’s do it this way: you leave me here in the woods, go and find some people and then you will come back after me.”
He said, “And what if it is tomorrow morning?”
I said, “Pavlo, I am not transportable anyway,”
I said, “Come on. Let it be the way it will work out for you.”
Perhaps God was above us or I don’t know what else was there…
He said, “Well, ok. I’ll start moving.”
He found a forester’s house some three or five kilometres away from us. It was some very small room, but a big advantage there was a stove. The house could be heated. Having found some extra strength, he managed to take me to that house. He succeeded. Well, since it was a forest, there was plenty of firewood.
We managed to kindle that stove and, for the first time in a week or 10 days, we warmed up there. When morning came, we found a broken car just left nearby. All its windows were broken, something was broken there, but he managed to start the engine. I can’t even explain how it happened.
Well, you know it was just a wreck standing near the forest station. But otherwise, we would not be able to come out of there, and especially in my case, as I could not walk. He said, “Oleh Oleksandrovych, I started up this car’s engine and it can run.”
So in fact, in part thanks to this guy, we went off and we were on our way out of that forest.
Clearly, we did not have any phones with us, we did not have navigation, we had nothing. Well, and you know that the road signs with names of all settlements, they were removed. That is, even when we came somewhere, we just did not understand where we are and we drove on, as they say, haphazardly.
Our hypothesis was this: my hands were absolutely black, my skin was already black, and my toes and fingers too. I could not wear anything on my feet. They were just black, and I kept my hands in front of me.
We went out and came across Byshiv checkpoint, our checkpoint, set up by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. And I laugh now as I recount it. Well, when we were stopped and soldiers came up to check, our guys, they looked at me…
Imagine, some man sitting barefoot, in some T-shirt and with black hands and feet. They asked us, “Where are you going?” I said, “We are going to Severynivka, to my home.”
I said, “No, everything is fine.” That was a checkpoint near Byshiv. They called an ambulance. When I got to the intensive care unit in Fastiv, my wife coordinated my search. It so happened that they identified me to be in Makariv. But based on the assessment of the situation, that there were no medicines available, that I was in the intensive care unit in Fastiv at that time and the possibilities of our healthcare in general, as well as the physical condition in which I was…
You can imagine, a blue-coloured body with black hands and feet. It was decided that I should be taken abroad, to Germany, for medical treatment. And thanks to my wife’s efforts, who mobilized all my friends, all friends not only in Ukraine, but also abroad, they organized (and I was a lying case then), they arranged a permit, because there is a law on mobilization now. So they arranged that I was allowed to go abroad. I was transported from Fastiv to Chernivtsi. We spent a night there and then from there we moved to the Romanian city of Suceava. We took a plane there and flew to Munich.
So from 14 or 17 March until now I have been undergoing operations all the time here. From the very beginning, I had many of them, as the doctors decided what to amputate and what to leave. A lot of questions. I have had about 5-6 operations for now.
We will definitely win it [the war] for the simple reason that we are fighting for ourselves, you know. We are helping our people, we are rebuilding our own, I mean the motivation we have. This is my hypothesis, my point of view. That is, we have a completely different level of motivation – we are fighting for what belongs to us, and that says it all.
Even though we are starving, we are being killed and so on. And I will be honest with you, as a man who is military in spirit: if your unit (and it is not just about the army, it also relates to business), if your team has no inner motivation for what they do, and it is not just a matter of money, not only about some bonuses or some awards.
If there is no internal motivation for what you do, as a rule, you will not be able to achieve your goal either in business or the goal of protecting the state. Upon the end of this war, we will have to work very hard in order to rebuild Ukraine. This is at the time when the whole world will move on. So we will have a lot of work to do indeed.
I do not stop in my development. It is clear that now it is not so intense, but I do not stop working on my development, the development of those people who are with me in the same team, and I will continue to do it, even more intensively, but when back to Ukraine.
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