A traumatised Ukrainian prisoner of war has reportedly been left unable to speak or show emotion after being electrocuted while held in a hellish gulag in Russia.
Yuri Hulchuk, 23, was electrocuted in his genitals by a notorious Russian torturer called Dr Evil after being captured in the war in 2022.
Guards beat him regularly and shot him in the legs with tasers so often that he became nearly paralyzed.
Even after his release from the gulag, he is so traumatized that he barely responded to his mother, Dr. Milana Kompaniiets, when he finally reunited with her after more more than two years in Russian hands.
The footage shows the couple embracing and Hulchuk’s mother telling him: “We love you, we really do. Without you, we would have no life. You are our sunshine, our joy, our pride, our love.” But Hulchuk tragically did not respond due to the torture he endured.
This is the moment a traumatised Ukrainian prisoner of war left speechless after being electrocuted is reunited with his mother after two years in a hellish gulag in Russia. Yuri Hulchuk, 23, was electrocuted in his genitals by a notorious Russian torturer called Dr Evil after being captured in the war
Tortured marine Yuri Hulchuk, 23, has returned to Ukraine after more than two years in captivity in Russia, where he allegedly lost the ability to speak and show emotion.
Even after his release from the gulag, he is so traumatised that he barely responded to his mother, Dr Milana Kompaniiets (pictured), when he was finally reunited with her after more than two years in Russian hands.
The images show the couple embracing and Hulchuk’s mother telling him: “We love you, we really do. Without you, we would have no life. You are our sunshine, our joy, our pride, our love.”
Kompaniets had spent two years searching for evidence that her linguist son was alive after he disappeared in the April 2022 collapse of the Illich steel plant in Mariupol.
Finally, he found a photograph of a prisoner of war in Russia and recognized his changed face.
She later learned from the exchanged prisoners that he was alive, but she also heard about how he had been horribly tortured.
She personally met people freed in exchanges with Russia and eventually found a Ukrainian national guard who had shared a cell with her son in a harsh Moldovan penal colony.
“We talked every day for hours. I learned things that I, as a mother, shouldn’t have known,” she said.
Her son was beaten mercilessly until he could no longer speak, according to the Media Initiative for Human Rights in Ukraine.
“I think he suffered a stroke from the beating,” she said. “My son was fluent in English, Chinese and Polish and very talkative, and after all that, not being able to speak…”
Kompaniets rested his head on his hands. “They gave him electric shocks to his genitals and paralyzed his legs. When I found out, all I could do was cry and scream.”
She said: “I never understood why Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the ‘evil empire’. Now we all understand.”
BEFORE AND AFTER: Images show Hulchuk before he was captured by Russian forces, left and right, after two years in captivity.
Kompaniiets (right) had spent two years searching for evidence that her linguist son was alive after he disappeared in the April 2022 collapse of the Illich steel plant in Mariupol.
Finally, he found a photograph of prisoners of war in Russia where he recognized his changed face.
His son (right) had insisted on dropping out of college and joining the 36th Marine Brigade against his wishes, he said.
“In Russia, they are taking animals away from people. They want to eliminate all of humanity.”
Her son had insisted on dropping out of college and joining the 36th Marine Brigade against her wishes, she said.
When she saw his photo, he was “a complete stranger to me” after the horrors he had faced.
His cellmate confirmed that his son had been chosen to be brutally tortured.
“The boys tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t say a word,” he said.
“I don’t know if his speech center is damaged or there is something wrong with the muscles in his mouth or throat.”
He was eventually exchanged on Sept. 14, “but due to the beatings, he lost the use of his legs, and also lost speech and emotions,” a report said.
‘Yury doesn’t answer his mother.’
However, when he was first released, although he was unable to speak, he managed to type on a smartphone during a call to his mother, saying: “Mom is as beautiful as ever.”
He said his father was “as gray as before.”
Before the war, he was fluent in three foreign languages and was studying to become a Chinese translator.