Survived the torture of the Kadyrovites and drove a car with a bullet through his arm. The story of the driver who disappeared on the Zhytomyr highway

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The story of a driver who went to evacuate friends from Irpin and disappeared
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Photo: armyinform.com.ua
16:41, 10.04.2022

On 1 March, 57-year-old from Kyiv Olexandr Shchigol went along the Zhytomyr highway to the city of Irpin to evacuate his friends.



The day before, he took his family to western Ukraine and decided to return and help others. In the evening, communication with the man disappeared. His daughter Pavlina posted on social networks asking for help finding her father. It helped return Alexander to his relatives. The social portal publishes Pavlina's story about what happened to her father on the Zhytomyr highway.

On February 28, dad brought his wife and 11-year-old son to Ternopil; it was his birthday, and he spent the day with his family. March 1st went in the direction of Kyiv to help evacuate friends. The family cried and did not want to let go but promised to be careful and ask for recommendations at our checkpoints. I called along the way.

At 18:30, his wife calls him on his mobile; he picks up the phone and says he is a prisoner of the Russians. Through the receiver, he can hear someone say to him: "At the APU, bitch" (as we later learned, they hit him on the head with a rifle butt). Says: "APU." And that his car was shot, his documents and food were taken away, and he was wounded. After that, his sister calls him again, communicates with those who took him, and explains that he has a small child, diabetes and crying ... After some time, they call her back and say that he is being released, call back. In 10 minutes …

I call, he picks up the phone, confirms that they shot the car, wounded him in the head and arm, tortured, beaten, the wheels were broken, he was driving at a speed of 5 km / h already in the direction of Zhytomyr. Around the shot cars and corpses. During the conversation, he drives up to the second post of the Russians. They ask where he's from, and the last thing I hear is:

Who is Pavel? - My son.

After that, the connection is terminated, and there is no more connection. My first thought was murder.

Having gathered our thoughts, all the relatives called all possible authorities - the police, the SBU, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the defense, hospitals, and district administrations of nearby cities for almost a day without sleep. They answer that there are fights along the Zhytomyr highway, and they don’t let anyone in there, and even where ours are now, it’s better not to go. Toward the evening of the next day, a call comes from a policewoman; she says:

I saw your post on Facebook. We have your dad! Alive! Get him.

It was possible to pick him up only the next day in the Zhytomyr region, where he was in the hospital where he was operated on.

What happened:

Dad was driving along the Zhytomyr highway, where he was told at the post in Stavische that it was safe to go further. There were three other cars in front of him. Suddenly, the first car stops; dad drives around on the right and sees that the second car in the line has exploded.

The next thing he remembers is that they shine a flashlight on him and start shooting at the car; he drives forward, hoping to escape, feels that he hit his arm and head (in the head - sliding, fortunately), and there are five bullet holes in the windshield and more many on the right side and behind. In a panic, he drives several kilometers further and sees the Russian equipment. Here he stops and leaves with his hands up. Then they torture him, beat him (they decided he was a spy), strip him to the waist in the cold, and shoot him over his head. They take documents, food, and cigarettes. Three spoke to him but saw several dozen. He says Kadyrovtsy. Then his relatives call him, and there is a short conversation with us.

Indeed, they let me go, but back towards Zhytomyr. After our last conversation at 19:40, he again stumbled upon the checkpoint. They shot at him, smashed his phone, stripped him again, beat him, and shot him over his temple. They released me again, but now they turned to Kyiv. Thus, he was sandwiched between two posts, and the second post again opened fire on him. Fortunately, dad saw a turn to some village and was able to turn off the road. Then I heard that large-scale battles began along the highway, and it was hazardous to leave.

He knocked on the doors of several houses, but no one opened. I realized that they would notice driving with the headlights on suicide. I turned off the headlights and waited in a cold car until the morning. Somehow he squeezed the wound on his arm but lost a lot of blood. In the morning, when dawn broke, I moved towards Zhytomyr along the bypass roads. I drove onto the highway not far from Stavisch; driving up, I saw that another car had exploded in front of him. As it turned out, the road was mined. One of our men cleared the road, finally driving up to the checkpoint and leaving with his hands up.

Our defense system immediately helped, they took Brusilov to the police, where they provided first aid, but they interrogated him for a long time and put him in a cell. Fortunately, there was a passport under the car seat, which the Russians did not take away. But dad couldn't remember a single phone number. Only when the police found my contact on Facebook did they contact me and release him, taking him to the hospital.

He was fortunate - the head wound was light and in the arm. Also, numerous bruises on the body because of the beatings - a concussion. Others who were driving at the same time were far less fortunate. A family was in one of the cars - the dad was killed, and the children were in the same hospital. The girl's eye was removed, and a part of the skull was dismissed for a 1.5-year-old child ... Later, we heard that there was a family of five, of which only the youngest child survived. Another child is missing.

After that, we learned that there are a lot of such stories. Most of them don't have happy endings...

Later, Alexander managed to find his wrecked car on the track:

The destroyed building nearby was a hotel. As you know, after the retreat of the Russian invaders from Kyiv, hundreds of dead civilians were found in towns and villages in the northwest. Among them were shot people in cars who tried to leave the territories engulfed in battles, residents with their hands tied, killed after torture, and dead women and children. The Russian Federation claims that the Ukrainian authorities stage all this. However, the data of international experts, along with the stories of numerous eyewitnesses, suggest otherwise. Oleksandr testified to the Ukrainian special services. This data can help find those involved in war crimes against Ukrainians.

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Olena Tkalich

Expert on women's rights, persons with disabilities, motherhood in the modern context, health care reform, education and social welfare.