Ukrainian Ministry shared the picture: Did these gold teeth really come from victims of torture?
BILD met the village dentist – he says no
This picture of what was assumed to be a box of gold teeth was shared across the entire world on social media and evoked terrible associations. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense also posted it on Twitter
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense expressed a gruesome suspicion on Twitter.
The photo shows a box of dental crowns. Next to it, a picture of a gas mask. The ministry wrote: “A torture chamber in Pisky-Radkivski. 2 photos. A gas mask that was put on the head of a victim who was covered with a smoldering rag and buried alive. And a box of gold dental crowns. A mini Auschwitz.“
International media such as the British Telegraph picked up the unverified assumption that the teeth came from Russian torture chambers.
What really happened?
Yesterday, BILD reporters visited the recently liberated village of in Pisky-Radkivsksi in the Kharkiv region (eastern Ukraine). They met victims who confirmed that people had been tortured by Russian soldiers.
However, the teeth that were found apparently do not come from dead or tortured people – but from patients of the local dentist.
“The teeth look like from my stolen collection,” says Sergey (60). BILD had shown him the ministry’s picture. “I’m the only dentist here. So if they were found here, they must be by me.”
The dentist assumes that the Russians stole the teeth because they thought they are made of real gold (they are actually made of stainless steel) – and because they wanted to intimidate the Ukrainians. “Some residents told me that the Russians used the teeth to scare people,” Sergey reports.
Village dentist Sergey (60) shows his box of teeth to BILD reporters. He suspects that the gold teeth featured in the photo may come from his own plundered house
Asked whether the crowns might come from dead people, the dentist replies: “My God, no! They come from people I have treated all those years. I took these teeth out because they were bad.”
The doctor tells BILD: “Over the course of 30 years, I have removed tens of thousands of teeth. This is just a fraction of them. Sometimes, I pull out five to eight teeth in one day. I have been doing this for 33 years.”
It is not clear where the gas mask came from that can be seen on the other photo. One thing is certain: gruesome torture did take place in the village, just as in many other places occupied by the Russians. Several locals told BILD that they kept hearing cries for help from various buildings.
Residents tell BILD deputy editor-in-chief, Paul Ronzheimer, about torture by the Russian occupants
Volodya (46) was one of the victims of torture by the Russian soldiers in Pisky-Radkivski. A neighbour had denounced him as pro-Ukrainian. Volodya: “They just took me with them. While I was beaten, they said to me: ‘If you don’t work for us, we’ll shoot you in the legs, and that’s it’. The other one said: ‘We should shoot him in the legs, we’ll have to deal with him just like with the other one’. The room and ceiling were full of bullet holes. I think they wanted to scare the person who was there before me.”
Volodya, a victim of torture, tells BILD how brutally the Russians had treated him
Andrey (46) was held by the Russians for weeks. His wife Olga told BILD: “About eight people came to our farm. Two controlled our papers. They gave me my papers back, but they took my husband with them, because he was on the list.”
Andrey was gone for two months. Russian soldiers kept him in a basement for five days, beat him up, and transported him to different cities and places. He was forced to clean the streets there. Later, they forced him to dig trenches in Lyman for the Russian soldiers.
