MOSCOW, August 3. /TASS/. The larger part of Russian soldiers who returned from Ukrainian captivity were physically abused and denied medical assistance, Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said at a briefing for foreign military diplomats on Wednesday.

Numerous instances were recorded of beating Russian POWS, deliberately inflicting bodily harm on them and carrying out their extrajudicial shoot-outs, Fomin pointed out.

"Besides, the Ukrainian Neo-Nazis exert psychological pressure on the relatives of detained servicemen and broadly practice extortion of funds," he added.

A poll of the servicemen who returned from captivity shows that 81% of the soldiers were beaten and physically abused while 55% of the servicemen were forcefully drawn into making propaganda videos and 46% of them were denied the required medical assistance and 79% of the POWs could not get in touch with their relatives, the defense official said.

"As many as 19% of the servicemen were provided with insufficient or inferior food. In particular, at a detention center belonging to the Ukrainian Security Service in Kiev, food (a piece of bread, 50 grams of porridge and a glass of water) was given once a day. Simultaneously, the servicemen constantly wore blind masks," the deputy defense minister said.