Ukrainian prisoners of war have begun speaking publicly about their ordeal under a Russian medic they call “Doctor Evil.”
Ilya Sorokin, 35, faces torture charges in absentia from Ukraine’s SBU security service for alleged abuses at penal facility No. 10 in Mordovia, southeast of Moscow. The European Union has already imposed sanctions on him, citing his “inhumane and degrading treatment” of prisoners. Sorokin has denied all allegations against him.
Serhii Doroshenko, a Ukrainian military doctor captured during the 2022 battle for Mariupol, spent over 1,000 days in Russian custody before his release last year in a prisoner exchange. Speaking from his hospital bed where he remains in recovery, Doroshenko told the Times of London about Sorokin’s methods.
“There were 30 of us, all naked, in a room. He asked who had asthma, tuberculosis, or anything else,” Doroshenko said.
“But if, God forbid, you mentioned any illness, then he would torture you personally, on top of the torture from the prison staff, because you were making extra work for him,” he added.
Doroshenko described how Sorokin allegedly targeted captured Ukrainian medical personnel with particular cruelty, based on unproven claims spread by Russian propaganda.
“This myth was spread by Russian propaganda. They told us that in Mariupol medics ran some biological experiments on Russian soldiers and colonels,” Doroshenko said.
“That they had cut off their testicles. This is bulls–t, of course, but we got beaten for this just as much as artillerymen and snipers,” he continued.
The abuse was not limited to medical personnel. Ukrainian marine infantry officer Pavlo Afisov, speaking to RFE/RL, described his own encounters with Sorokin, who was also nicknamed “Dr Shocker,” Afisov said the medic would wear a medical mask and sometimes a balaclava decorated with a skull during torture sessions.
“You can’t call him a human being. He started to wave the stun gun around and shocked me several times,” Afisov said.
“He said we were ‘stinking khokhkly [A Russian slur for Ukrainians]’ who did not deserve decent treatment,” Afisov added.
Sorokin allegedly used a stun gun on prisoners who failed to shout “Glory to Russian medicine!” or who requested medical help for heart pains, festering wounds, or even toothaches. Ukrainian inmates were forced to address him with heads bowed and hands behind their backs.
“To raise your face was to die, or to receive so many blows that you might not survive,” Doroshenko said.
“He kicked us and hit us with a baton and a stun gun. He knows where it hurts the most, and he deliberately strikes you right there,” Doroshenko said.
The charges against Sorokin cover at least 29 Ukrainian POWs, but he represents a broader pattern. A new report titled “The Anatomy of Torture” by the Kyiv-based Center for Civil Liberties documents hundreds of former prisoners who witnessed Russian medical professionals “directly participating in torture, ill treatment, and the degrading treatment of detainees.”