'Torment of hell': Ukraine medic describes Russian torture

A volunteer Ukrainian medic held captive three months by Russian forces in Ukraine’s besieged port city of Mariupol told U.S. lawmakers Thursday of cradling and comforting fellow prisoners as they died of torture and inadequately treated wounds.

Ukrainian Yuliia Paievska, who was captured by pro-Russian forces in Mariupol in March and held at shifting locations in Russian-allied territory in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, spoke to lawmakers with the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as the Helsinki Commission, a government agency created in part to promote international compliance with human rights.

Her accounts Thursday were her most detailed publicly of her treatment in captivity, in what Ukrainians and international rights groups say are widespread detentions of both Ukrainian noncombatants and fighters by Russia’s forces.