A Ukrainian villager who was seized by Russian troops, shot in the face, thrown into a grave with his eyes covered, hands and feet feet bound, has lived to tell the tale.
Mykola Kulichenko, from a village outside Kyiv, was chucked into a grave alongside his two brothers on March 18, after Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces believed he was dead.
The 33-year-old and his two brothers -- Yevhen and Dmytro -- were at home when the Russian troops raided their house, Daily Star reported.
Kulichenko told CNN that Russians were looking for any military connections. They then found military medals that belonged to their grandfather and Yevhen's bag. Yevhen was a paratrooper.
A member of the family had, however, managed to evade the Russian forces. It was the sister Iryna who was in a neighbour's house when the invaders arrived.
The brothers were interrogated and tortured for three days, Kulichenko said.
"They beat my whole body with a metal rod, and they put the barrel of a gun inside my mouth," the survivor told CNN.
On the fourth the day, the brothers were blindfolded, driven to a pit, and told to kneel, Kulichenko said.
The Russian troops then shot and killed Yevhen and Dmytro. Kulichenko, however, was shot through the cheek. The bullet exited near his right ear.
"Slam! And the blood flowed through my body," Kulichenko said recollecting the moment when the bullet hit his face.
The Ukrainian told the CNN that he knew his only chance of survival was to play dead. And he did just that.
"It was hard for me to breathe since Dima (Dmytro) was lying on top of me, but using my arms and knees, I was able to push my older brother off to the side of the pit, and then I climbed out," Kulichenko recalled.
In the dark, an injured Kulichenko stumbled his way through till he found a nearby home. He spent the night under their care and was able to return home to his sister.
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