'I Need Some Corpses': Ukrainian Captive Recounts Mock Executions Carried Out By Russian Soldier

A Ukrainian man has recounted the harrowing days he was held a captive in a basement of a house by Russian soldiers, who mocked executions. The man, identified as Maksym, said he was one of the 22 men from his village subjected to fake execution by the invaders.

Maksym was kept inside a hole in the basement, which he describes as a "place of extreme trauma," for days, according to a video story by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Though the location isn't clear, the house is somewhere in Novy Bykov, a village in Chernihiv Oblast of Ukraine. The village was one of the first areas to fall under the Russian hands.

Maksym recalled the "two weeks of beatings and interrogations" before a Russian soldier came for "a different reason." The soldier asked for Vovk (another Ukrainian) and took him outside. "I thought it was for interrogation. Then, he came and said, "I need some guys to be shot. I need some corpses," a traumatized Maksym remembered. The soldier took another Ukrainian, identified as Ivashko, outside after giving him a glass of Vodka to be "shot."

Maksym was the next. "They took me outside and put me on my knees, and shot close to my ears. They then told me to go back inside," he told the news outlet.

However, not all executions in the village were "fake." According to the Radio Free Europe report, Olha, an elderly woman, lost two of her sons, Oleh and Ihor, on the first day of the war. "They were just coming home. They encountered some Russian soldiers in the village. They shot one and stabbed the other one to death," said Olha.

Russian soldiers allegedly killed over 20 people in the village of Novy Bykov. The troops also reportedly left mines in gardens, looted shops and vandalized schools in the village.

Maksym isn't the only one to open up about the "fake execution" tactic of the Russians. Earlier, a Ukrainian man had narrated how he went through three days and nights of torture and mock executions while being held captive by the Russian forces in the town of Borodyanka.

"I was beaten for 15-20 minutes. Then a machine gun was fired over my head, shot at my feet. All this time, I prayed to God to save my life. The humiliation and intimidation continued. We are looking for Ukrainian tattoos on your body,” a soldier said. “If we find them, we will cut them together with the skin," Petro Titenko, a 45-year-old Ukrainian, told The Guardian in an earlier interview.