The Observer reports:

Olena Yahupova was first taken by the Russian occupiers in the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar last October. Neighbours she knew had informed on her, telling the FSB secret police that her husband was a Ukrainian military officer.

What followed, she says, was two days of torture with the secret police – which turned out to be only a prelude to a nightmare of five months of detention and forced labour, during which she also had to act in faked news clips.

“There was a complete absence of any source of law, they did whatever they want,” Yahupova says, now speaking in Ukraine, describing the situation in a town after Russia “gradually built up this repression machine” aimed at liquidating opposition and trying to force locals to collaborate.

Enerhodar was a city of 53,000 before the war, best known as being the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. A key target for the Russian invaders, it was captured in early March 2022.

Dmytro Orlov, its mayor in exile, now based in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, says only 15,000 people are left, a third of whom work at the vast site, and describes a Russian reign of terror unleashed not just on Ukrainian leaders and nuclear plant workers, but also ordinary citizens such as Yahupova. [Continue reading…]