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Mother of Russian POW being blackmailed with her son's torture

Valentina Ivanchenko says she has been repeatedly shown her son abused and tortured in real time

DONETSK, October 1. /TASS/. Ukrainian secret services have repeatedly tortured a Russian prisoner of war in front of a video camera trying to force his mother, Valentina Ivanchenko, an employee of the National Guard (Rosgvardiya) in the Donetsk People’s Republic, to cooperate. The woman has told TASS that scenes of her son being abused was repeatedly shown to her via video link in real time.

“I heard him being beaten. He was screaming: ‘Mommy! Help me, help me! Do something! Do what you are being told.” Then there was silence. They would disappear for a while. They called me several times. They were tasering him. They showed me his half-naked torso. They kept telling me that if I don’t do what they were demanding, I wouldn't see my son again. Each time they called me they were beating him. I heard and saw that,” the woman said.

Valentina's son, 21-year-old Gennady Ivanchenko, volunteered to the frontline in 2023. In early August 2024 he went missing. Three weeks later anonymous telephone callers told the woman that Gennady was in captivity. According to Ivanchenko they promised to return her son only if she agreed to meet all their conditions, including copies of the National Guard’s internal documents and personnel lists. The woman was warned she had a one-day deadline.

“I tried to procrastinate as long as I could,” Ivanchenko said. She explained that she was unable to get out of the situation on her own and needed someone to ask for help.

“I don’t know how to cope with this pressure anymore. I decided to make my story public. Possibly somebody can do something about it to help me and my boy,” the woman said.

At the moment Gennady Ivanchenko is listed missing. The Ukrainian special services, according to the woman, have never put her son on exchange lists.

“He is not proposed for a POW swap. Apparently, they are out to make me speak to squeeze out all I know,” Ivanchenko said.

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