Former hostage Ron Krivoi, who was kidnapped during the October 7 massacre and released in November 2023 as a gesture to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said he was held together with kidnapped IDF soldier Matan Angrest.
In a conversation on Channel 12 News, Krivoi told Angrest's parents that their son was seriously injured on October 7 and lost consciousness during the kidnapping. He also said that the terrorists attached a car battery to Angrest and administered several electric shocks, in an attempt to wake him.
"The interrogations that he went through while we were still in Israel, it started there – they had already connected him to a battery along the way and tried to wake him up, through the batteries of a car that electrified him at first. This is what he remembers – when he wakes up he sees a battery electrifying him, and once again he loses consciousness. And no matter what they did, he was already unconscious. They couldn't question him. He was probably not in a position to talk, because he was really, really hurt. His injuries are very serious."
Krivoi added, "We were in something really small, deep, underground. We didn’t even have a floor, we were on sand and mattresses that were all in mold. We were in a really, really small cage, we're talking something like five feet by six feet and we have to lie in it and rest in it, and we can’t stand. No height, no toilet, no food. There were five of us, we ate one dish with some canned food, and we were tempted to share it with everyone. I was there for 51 days, and I lost nine pounds of my body weight."
"Whoever came to free me asked who the Russian was, he asked who the Russian was," Krivoi added. "I was afraid to answer for a moment and then he asked again. I realized that I was the only one who looked Russian, and I raised my hand and then he said to me, 'You’re going home tomorrow.'"
Regarding his release from captivity, he added, "I’m here because of a miracle. I know that if I did not have Russian citizenship, I could have been with Matan until today in the tunnel. Putin is the one who brought me home, if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be back here today, we've been abandoned."