Ukrainian POWs Recount Brutal Torture by Russian Medic Dubbed 'Dr. Evil'
Survivors describe systematic abuse, including beatings and electric shocks, at the hands of Ilya Sorokin in a Russian penal facility.
Surviving Ukrainian prisoners of war have detailed harrowing accounts of torture inflicted upon them by a Russian medic identified as Ilya Sorokin, who is infamously known to his victims as "Doctor Evil" and "Dr. Shocker." Operating from penal facility No. 10 in Mordovia, Russia, Sorokin, 35, has been accused by Ukraine's SBU security service of in absentia charges for the torture of at least 29 Ukrainian POWs.
Former prisoners describe systematic abuse, including physical beatings with batons and stun guns, and degrading treatment. Serhii Doroshenko, a Ukrainian military doctor captured during the battle for Mariupol in 2022, recounted being among 30 naked prisoners in a room where Sorokin would inquire about existing medical conditions. Doroshenko stated that any mention of illness could result in personal torture by Sorokin, on top of abuse from prison staff.
"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 told the Times of London, speaking from his hospital bed. He added that Sorokin reserved his harshest punishments for Ukrainian medical personnel, allegedly based on unsubstantiated claims that they had conducted medical experiments on Russian soldiers.
"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."
Other former POWs described Sorokin wearing a medical mask and sometimes a balaclava with a skull during torture sessions. Ukrainian marine infantry officer Pavlo Afisov told RFE/RL, "You can’t call him a human being. He started to wave the stun gun around and shocked me several times." Afisov also recounted Sorokin using derogatory language, referring to Ukrainians as "stinking khokhkly."
Prisoners were reportedly forced to shout "Glory to Russian medicine!" and were subjected to stun gun attacks for failing to do so or for seeking help for medical issues. Ukrainian inmates were instructed to keep their heads down and hands behind their backs when addressing Sorokin, with any attempt to look at his face risking severe physical retribution.
The European Union has imposed sanctions on Sorokin, citing his "inhumane and degrading treatment" of prisoners. Sorokin has denied the allegations against him. He is one of several Russian medics accused of torturing Ukrainian POWs, according to a report by the Kyiv-based Center for Civil Liberties, which documented hundreds of accounts of medical professionals participating in the mistreatment of detainees.