He only came home in June: Oleh Kotov, a civilian who spent four years in Russian captivity, has died
It has emerged that Oleh Kotov, a 60-year-old retired police officer from Kharkiv Oblast who was abducted and unlawfully held by the Russians for four years, died in a Kyiv hospital in late July. Oleh survived beatings and torture and developed cancer while in captivity. He was brought back to Ukraine in June.
Source: Austrian journalist Stefan Schocher in Die Welt; a translation by the The Book of Executioners project
Warning: this story contains descriptions of traumatic events that some readers may find distressing.
Details: Oleh lived with his wife in the village of Kozacha Lopan in Kharkiv Oblast, which came under occupation immediately after the Russian invasion began. Oleh, then 56, was detained by the Russians on 23 April 2022.
Oleh said 15 soldiers approached him in the street and asked: "Are you Kotov?" The occupation forces then entered his home, seized his electronic devices, and drove him to the nearest railway station.
First he was questioned about his sons. Oleh said his younger son was studying in Western Europe. He chose not to tell the truth about his elder son, who worked for the police in Kharkiv, telling the Russians that he did casual work on a building site.
"They knew I hadn't told them the truth," Oleh said, adding that the soldiers had documents containing personal information about his family.
He was then taken down to a basement, where he was brutally beaten and subjected to electric shock torture. Oleh did not reveal details of the abuse he endured, but admitted that it felt as if his heart was burning through his chest.
The basement at the railway station was only the beginning. Oleh was transferred to a small hotel in Hoptivka, a village on the Russian border. The premises were being used as a camp for prisoners of war and civilian hostages.
The journalist recounted: "There was a large room. He was made to sit in a corner. Fifteen men stood around him. One sat down in front of him, took a folding knife from his pocket, opened it, and said: 'So then, shall I cut your ears off?'"
Although Oleh did not lose his ear, he was left with a scar. He said the Russians did not intend to kill him – they wanted to "crush his ribcage". Fourteen men beat him for around four hours until he lost consciousness. Then they subjected him to electric shocks.
Oleh endured the abuse for almost a month. For 18 days he was forbidden to use the toilet. When he left the hotel, he had at least three broken ribs.
He was then taken to a tented camp in Russia's Belgorod Oblast, where he was subjected to beatings and interrogations. The guards repeatedly beat the hostages with 73-cm (29-inch) batons.
Other forms of torture were also used: gas cylinders were tied to the prisoners' legs and set alight, and hot metal was pressed to the soles of their feet.
After several changes of location, Oleh ended up in Russia's Stary Oskol. There he fell ill. Once the Russians told him he would suffocate from "his pneumonia". However, Oleh overheard them saying that in fact, he had cancer.
Despite being seriously ill, he received no treatment – only a few injections, although he was not told what was in them. From that point on, however, he was mostly left in peace. His wife used to write to him every month, but he only received two of her letters.
In June 2026, he was handed a uniform and made to change into it. By then Oleh was so weak that he could barely do this without assistance.
The Ukrainian hostages were transported with bags over their heads – first by bus for an hour, then by plane, then by bus again. At one point, one of them suggested they might be on their way to a prisoner exchange. The response was: "Not on your life! Don't be such a fool."
But the Ukrainians really were going home. Journalist Stefan Schocher spoke with Oleh while he was in hospital in Kyiv. At the time, the retired officer was "skin and bone" and had to be fed through a tube.
"I bear no resentment or bitterness, but [I want] this evil to be defeated," he said.
Oleh's wife joked that they should "call the police", meaning their eldest son from Kharkiv. But their younger son did not make it to his father in time.
A week after speaking with the journalist, Oleh Kotov died.
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