Priest taken as Russian POW unrecognisable after spending a year being tortured
Source: Daily Star – World News
Father Bohdan Geleta has spoken out about the horrors he endured as a prisoner of war in a Russian camp in Ukraine – the 60-year-old was released in the summer after 19 months
A priest who was taken as a Russian POW looks unrecognisable after spending a year being tortured.
Father Bohdan Geleta spent 19 harrowing months in detention, facing daily beatings and abuse at a severe POW camp in occupied Ukrainian territory. A place where prisoners were forced to run the gauntlet of guards who would attack them before meals and administer electric shocks. Speaking with the Mirror, the markedly different looking man of faith recounted the grim details of surviving through a reign of ferocious savagery.
Father Bohdan, along with colleague Father Ivan Levytsky, continued conducting services throughout the foreign occupation.
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church priests remained in their community when Vladimir Putin’s troops seized Berdiansk in Zaporizhzhia at the beginning of the invasion in late February 2022.
However, Father Bohdan chillingly recalled the initial days being “terrifying”.
Detailing one brutal incident he witnessed, he said one of the invading soldiers wanted to call home and asked a man for his personal phone, but when the man said no, he was shot on the spot.
He said he constantly heard stories from churchgoers about missing relatives, people being found dead, and others’ apartments were robbed and broken.
Ultimately, the pair were falsely accused and taken into custody in November 2022, with weapons cunningly placed as evidence against them.
They endured the humiliation of being handcuffed and blindfolded. After nine grueling months in Berdiansk, they were transferred to a POW camp within the Moscow-controlled parts of Ukraine.
The camp in Horlivka, Donetsk, home to 1,800 inmates including Ukrainian forces, imposed fierce regulations that prisoners had to obey or face severe reprimands.
Father Bohdan recounted changing his appearance by shaving off his hair and beard and wearing the standard uniform for detainees. He described a life where one must always look down, keep hands behind the back, and remain silent – a set of conditions effectively chaining the spirit.
Father Bohdan said he was beaten up to twice a day, every day.
Mealtimes also ushered in a horrendous ritual akin to torture, suffered three times daily. Father Bohdan revealed there were two types of guards: DPR [so-called Donetsk People’s Republic] and Russian special forces (Spetsnaz).
He said the first were paid to guard them, adding “they could beat us but not kill”. But the second set were more violent.
He said: “In order to eat in the dining room we had to run through a narrow corridor formed of guards with sticks who were standing in two rows. We ran fast, hands behind the back, hunched over, looking down. Sometimes guards broke people’s arms, legs and ribs.”
And there was no let up when the prisoners sat down to eat, Father Bohdan revealed. He said they sat down at tables of 10 with their boiling soup and bread, and given three minutes to eat.
“During those three minutes when we were eating, guards used electric shockers on us,” he said. “Because of this some people poured all the soup on themselves and got burned.”
Father Bohdan said the brutal routine, from the gauntlet to sitting down to eat, took place every meal time, three times a day, adding: “That’s why no one wanted to eat.”
Father Bohdan, who was released alongside Father Ivan in a late June prisoner exchange, is now settled in Ivano-Frankivsk, located in north-west Ukraine.
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