Niamh Shackleton
Warning: this article contains descriptions of torture which some readers may find distressing.
A Ukrainian Marine who was brutally tortured in a hellhole Russian prison has lost the ability to speak or show emotion, according to reports.
Yuri Hulchuk, 23, was electrocuted through his genitals by a notorious torturer named Dr Evil after being captured in the war.
He reportedly faced regular beatings by guards, with stun guns used on his legs so often he became almost paralyzed.
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Now released, he is so traumatized he barely responds to his mother Milana Kompaniiets, a doctor.
A video shows the moment he met her after more than two years in Russian hands.
They hugged but he could not respond as she said: "We love you, we really love you… Without you, we didn’t have a life.
"You are our sun, our joy, our pride, our love," she added.
She had spent two years searching for evidence her linguist son was alive after he vanished in the April 2022 fall of the Illich steel plant in Mariupol.
Eventually, she found a photograph of prisoners of war in Russia where she recognised his changed face.
Then, she found from exchanged prisoners that he was alive, but also heard about how he had been horrifically tortured.
She personally met those freed in exchanges but Russia and eventually found a Ukrainian national guardsman who had shared a cell with her son in a harsh penal colony in Moldavia.
"We talked every day for hours. I learned things that I, as a mother, shouldn’t have known," she said.
Her son was beaten relentlessly until he could no longer speak, according to the Media Initiative for Human Rights in Ukraine.
"I think [he suffered] a stroke from the beating," she said.
"My son spoke English, Chinese, and Polish fluently and was very talkative, and after all that, not being able to speak."
Kompaniiets rested her head on her hands.
"They used electric shocks on his genitals, and his legs were paralyzed. When I found out, all I could do was cry and scream," she explained.
Apparently her son had insisted on leaving university and joining the 36th Marine Brigade against her wishes.
When she saw his picture he was 'a complete stranger to me' after the horrors he had faced.
His cellmate confirmed her son had been picked out for brutal torture.
"The boys tried to talk to him, but he could not say a word," she said.
"I don't know if his speech centre is impaired or something [is wrong] with the muscles of his mouth or throat."
He was eventually exchanged on September 14, but 'due to the beatings, he lost the use of his legs, and he also lost his speech and emotions', said a report.
Yet when he was first released, while he could not speak, he managed to type on a smart phone during a call to his mother, saying: "Mama is as beautiful as always."
He also said his father was 'as grey haired as before'.
Before the war, he spoke three foreign languages fluently and was studying to be a Chinese translator.