Former Ukrainian prisoners of war spoke about torture in a Russian pre-trial detention centerUkrainian soldiers released from Russian captivity said that while they were imprisoned in southern Russia, they were regularly subjected to severe torture, including beatings and electric shocks.Speaking to the BBC, more than a dozen servicemen released as part of a prisoner of war exchange gave horrific details of systematic physical and mental abuse while in detention center No. 2 in Taganrog.Such treatment is a serious violation of international humanitarian law.According to BBC correspondent Hugo Bachega, who spoke with several former prisoners of war, they all describe a similar pattern of extreme violence in the Taganrog pre-trial detention center. They say that they were constantly severely beaten, hit on the chest and kidneys, and beaten with electric shocks during inspections and interrogations.According to them, they were barely fed and the wounded did not receive adequate medical care, which reportedly caused some prisoners to die in custody.Also, some prisoners were forced under torture to give false confessions, which, according to them, were supposed to be used as evidence in court.The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. The Office of the UN High Commissioner said that it also had similar evidence at its disposal, but that representatives of the organization were not allowed to visit Russian places of detention where Ukrainian prisoners of war are kept.