04/29/2025

A Reporter Tried to Expose Russia’s Brutal Detention System

She ended up dead

The body bag was delivered to Kyiv on a flatbed truck. There was an alphanumeric code stamped across the white shroud, followed by four Cyrillic letters: СПАС — a Russian abbreviation denoting "extensive damage to the coronary arteries."

For most of the 757 Ukrainian bodies exchanged for Russian dead on Feb. 14, the Russian authorities had provided their counterparts in Kyiv with names of the deceased, nearly all male soldiers, and the dates they were killed. The final entry on the list handed to prosecutors said only "unidentified male."

When forensic experts opened the bag, they found a female body. Her head was shaved; her neck bruised. There was a tag with her last name attached to one shin, and burn marks on her feet, according to officials familiar with an ongoing investigation by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office. Medical examiners later found a broken rib and possible traces of electric shock. Some of her organs, including her brain, had been removed, officials said.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.