At a hospital in eastern Ukraine, a soldier lies with a bloodstained bandage around his neck, clutching a notepad.
Vladyslav was picked up by medics on August 17 and is now recovering from life-threatening wounds in Dnipro.
Unable to speak due to the deep lacerations to his throat, Vladyslav uses his notepad to tell his story.
“His condition was severe. If you saw his throat, you’d see,” the hospital director, Serhiy, told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service.
“[If his wound was] half a centimeter to the left or right, the carotid artery would have been cut, and his life would have ended in a minute or two,” he said.
Serhiy requested that his surname not be published. Like many active-duty soldiers, Vladyslav also asked for his surname not to be included.
The 33-year-old was serving near Pokrovsk, an area of Ukraine that has seen some of the fiercest fighting amid intense Russian attacks for months. He went missing on August 12.
Through his written account, Vladyslav said he was captured by Russian forces who took him to a basement with other captured Ukrainian soldiers, and that some were tortured.
“He said they were forced to watch. They couldn’t turn their heads away. They had to watch others being tortured,” Vladyslav’s wife, Viktoria, said.
“They cut them. And Vladyslav was cut, too,” added Yevhen, his brother. “They cut off part of his ear, pulled out a tooth with pliers, slashed his neck. And then they threw them all into a pit and covered them with garbage.”
According to Vladyslav, his hands were bound and he was left with his dead comrades. But somehow he escaped.
“The call came in about a wounded person, saying a military man had been in captivity,” said Artem, a paramedic from the MOAS-Ukraine Foundation, a humanitarian group.
“His throat was cut. [He was] a survivor. We went to get him. I’ll remember this case for the rest of my life,” he added.
Vladyslav said he managed to cut his hands free with a shard of glass before making his way back to Ukrainian lines. Badly wounded, he said it took him five days to crawl there.
This account cannot be independently confirmed.
What is known for sure is the extent of his injuries. He is expected to need several operations to regain his speech. In the meantime, his family is helping him through his recovery.
