The moment Mikhail Orlovsky was captured by Russian forces was caught on his own video camera.
He can be seen being driven away by soldiers on an armored vehicle with his hands raised.
At that moment, a Russian soldier drives Mikhailo’s car, which films the arrest in real time.
“The first thing I thought about was how to survive. The second thing was I was going to die,” he told Sky News.
Images from his camcorder were later released in Russia and posted online by a Russian journalist.
Image: The attack was captured by Mihailo Orlovski’s video recorder
After his arrest, he described how he was stripped of his clothes and glasses and taken to an area of dense forest.
“They beat us in the forest, started interrogating us, then tied us up and threw us into a pit where they kept us for two days,” he told us.
It was March 7th – and damn cold.
“They put a jacket on me and then tied it up. I was just wearing a jacket and sweatpants and that was it. But thank God the jacket at least had a hood.
“At the bottom of the pit was thrown cardboard, and there were two boxes that you could sit on.
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Mykhailo was a civilian taxi driver, but he was helping the Ukrainian army as a volunteer.
After two days in the hole in the woods, he was flown by helicopter to a prison in Kursk, Russia.
“We were transferred from office to office, from interrogation to interrogation.
“We constantly had to sign documents, were interrogated, were beaten.
“Everything lasted about six hours, they took us to a separate room where they beat us with boxing gloves on our kidneys, liver, ribs, neck and legs.
“They also used a stun gun. They hit us so hard.”
Image: Mihailo Orlovski talks to Sky’s Sally Lockwood
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He described how male and female prisoners had their heads shaved and had their blood, DNA and fingerprints taken.
“They took my phone and even my wedding ring,” he says. “They took all my documents…passport, driver’s license. All of that is still with them.”
Nearly 500 Ukrainian civilians are currently in Russian prisons.
Mihailo was inside for a total of four weeks before being exchanged in a prisoner swap in April.
During his time in prison, he was made to sing the Russian national anthem, which was played repeatedly.
“There was a radio, a speaker hanging on the door. And when the anthem sounded, and it sounded about 10-15 times a day, we had to line up and sing the anthem of the Russian Federation.”
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Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Mykhailo’s family was sick with worry about what had happened to him. After two weeks, they finally found a Russian photo taken after his arrest that was posted online.
When Mihailo learns that he will be exchanged in a prisoner exchange, he sobs during the three-hour journey to the border. It was April 10 – his mother’s birthday.
“I called her and said that everything is fine with me, that I am alive and well. I remember her tears of joy. She was happy that God would give her such a gift for her birthday.”
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Remembering this, he breaks down in tears and has to stop.
Finally, he continues: “It was a very difficult moment when I was talking to my brother and he told me that there was a moment when he thought that I had already died, that I was no longer there. It’s hard even now.”
Still processing
Mihailo then returned to the place where he was taken. His personal belongings were still on the ground – his glasses case, his AirPods, his business cards.
He also found his Mercedes car – now completely burnt, but the serial number was still visible.
Without his car, he has lost his livelihood. It’s clear that starting from scratch again is weighing heavily on him financially.
That, coupled with the harrowing ordeal he’s clearly still processing.
But he managed to escape with an important message to the world about the horrors of Ukrainian civilians in Russian custody.
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