They call it 'The Hole': Ukrainians describe horrors of Kherson occupation

Aliona Lapchuk shows a picture of her husband Vitaliy who she says was tortured and left to die by Russian forces in Kherson at the beginning of the war, during an interview with Reuters in Krasne in Mykolaiv region, Ukraine November 15, 2022. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

KHERSON, Ukraine (Reuters) - Residents in Ukraine's southern city of Kherson call the two-storey police station "The Hole". Vitalii Serdiuk, a pensioner, said he was lucky to make it out alive.

"I hung on," the retired medical equipment repairman said as he recounted his ordeal in Russian detention two blocks from where he and his wife live in a tiny Soviet-era apartment.