The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EDT
1:50 p.m.: A volunteer Ukrainian medic detained in the besieged port city of Mariupol described Russian torture she endured as a “torment of hell,” The Associated Press reported.
She told U.S. lawmakers Thursday of comforting fellow detainees as many died during her three months of captivity, cradling and consoling them as best she could, as male, female and child prisoners succumbed to Russian torture and untreated wounds.
Ukrainian Yuliia Paievska, who was captured by pro-Russian forces in Mariupol in March and held at shifting locations in Russian-allied territory in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, spoke to lawmakers with the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as the Helsinki Commission, a government agency created in part to promote international compliance with human rights.
Her accounts Thursday were her most detailed publicly of her treatment in captivity, in what Ukrainians and international rights groups say are widespread detentions of both Ukrainian noncombatants and fighters by Russia’s forces.
Known to Ukrainians by the nickname Taira, Paievska and her care of Mariupol’s wounded during the nearly seven-month Russian invasion of Ukraine received global attention after her bodycam footage was provided to The Associated Press.
“Do you know why we do this to you?” a Russian asked Paievska as he tortured her, she recounted to the commission. She told the panel her answer to him: “Because you can.”
1:10 p.m.: The U.N. World Food Program has chartered a ship to move grain from Ukraine to Afghanistan, VOA’s U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer reported Thursday.
The MV BC Vanessa is on its way to the Ukrainian port of Odessa, where it is expected to load 30,000 metric tons of wheat destined for Turkey, where it will be milled. Then the wheat will be shipped onward via Pakistan’s port of Karachi to reach WFP’s operations hub in Afghanistan.