Ukrainian man accuses Russians and Chechen troops of mock executions and days of torture

Fresh allegations of atrocities by occupying troops have emerged as a Ukrainian man described three days and nights of torture, mock executions and the disappearance of fellow prisoners during his captivity by Russian forces in the town of Borodyanka.

Petro Titenko, 45, told the Guardian of his three nights of hell at the hands of Russian and Chechen soldiers after he was picked up for breaking curfew, during which he was beaten, forced to kneel in what he was told was his grave and had bullets shot at his head and feet.

In Druzhnya, the couple hunkered down day and night in their cellar, aware, they said, that any civilians outside were being killed. But on the evening of 18 March Titenko decided to try to slip out after curfew to check on his brother less than three miles away.

Halfway there, at about 6.30pm, three Russian soldiers armed with machine guns emerged from the woods and accused him of giving Russian locations away to the Ukrainian army. He was searched, his hands were tied behind his back and a sack was roughly put over his head.

Titenko said he was taken into the woods and tied with rope to the back of a tank which the soldiers turned on so that he breathed in the fumes from the shoulder-height exhaust pipe.

After 30 minutes the engine was turned off and he was left there. Unable to move, Titenko stood all night in the freezing cold, thinking only the worst.

It was a false and mocking promise. The two prisoners were loaded on top of the tank and driven for an hour, Titenko said, struggling to contain his emotion as he recalled the conversation he heard between two of his captors.

Titenko said he was forced to lie on the mud where he stayed for what he estimates was four hours. Then he was lifted to his feet and kicked down the side of what he realised was a pit.

Titenko was left to lay there in what he had believed was his grave for a further three hours with the second prisoner before being taken to be fed a small bowl of porridge. He was then pushed into the back of a truck and the sack was again forced over his head.

His arms, now pained by the ties, were loosened from their binds. There was talk of the men being released. The soldiers said they could take the sacks off their heads after a period of 10 minutes.

The next morning the prisoners, cold, hungry and terrified of what more was to come, were loaded into a truck, taken away and dropped off. They were freed.

At the first, the Russian soldiers asked who he was. He replied that he had been in captivity and had no documents. He was allowed to pass, and then it was the same story for miles until he reached a fourth checkpoint where a column of military equipment was passing by.

He would kneel down and lower his head about 25 times on the journey. When he arrived home, the family decided they had to leave, and they braved a mined road to get away to the west.