“Every morning in prison, he recited the Ukrainian national anthem and ‘The Song of the Towel.’ Azov fighter Artem Dubyna survived a serious injury, returned from captivity, and is determined
Source: Novynarnia
Author: Anastasia Fedchenko
Artem Dubyna—that’s the name I looked for on every list of Ukrainian soldiers released in prisoner exchanges. I asked about him from every single member of the “old guard” of the Azov Regiment, who are so rarely released from Russian prisons. And on September 13, 2024—my mother’s birthday, the day my friend Olia Simonova was killed, and the day I registered at the maternity hospital because of my pregnancy), Dubyna finally came home.
I’ve known Artem for half my life. He was a fifth-year student in the Department of Mass Communication Systems and Media at the Oles Honchar Dnipro National University when I started my freshman year. He also lived and laughed on my floor in the dorm, practically in the next room. We met again with Artem many years later on the Svitlodarsk Arc, when his unit was deployed on a “real” rotation for the first time in a long while. Senior Lieutenant Artem Dubyna, head of the Azov Regiment’s press service, sported a neat mustache and was serious and precise in his work. After that, he was demobilized and rejoined the ranks of the National Guard. And in May 2022, the soldier with the call sign “Nikopol” (named after his hometown) was taken prisoner by the Russians along with other “Azov” fighters in Mariupol.
I tried to keep Nikopol’s spirits up with messages while he was at Azovstal. And I waited nearly two and a half years for his release. After this brief look back at the past, you can understand why this interview is so important and special to me. And why Artem is so sincere and candid.
“Azov” fighter Artem Dubyna recounts how he endured Russian captivity without breaking. What trials, interrogations, and torments he had to endure. About the war and the siege of Mariupol. About the conversations and songs in his head that played on repeat in his prison cell. About his brothers-in-arms and his sister-in-arms. About his liberation from captivity, the “time machine,” and emerging from informational isolation. About the search for happiness and the love he found. About treatment, “getting back on his feet,” and the future as well.
“We were on edge on the way to Mariupol”
On February 23, 2022, Artem Dubyna and his fiancée Olga were visiting his parents to celebrate his mother’s birthday. They went to bed late, and a couple of hours later, the former “Azov” soldier was awakened by explosions. He immediately realized: a major war had begun—one he had never doubted was coming.
“I thought: don’t start it now—let’s wait until after the wedding, after we have children… I mean, I understood that war was inevitable, but I hoped it wouldn’t happen right now. And that belief kept me going, because I had someone to live for.”
Artem’s backpack was still packed from when he returned from the Joint Forces Operation zone; next to it were his body armor, helmet, and hunting rifle—all ready for action. Dubyna went to take a shower. His mother, who always got up before everyone else, was surprised that her son had beaten her to it. She asked what had happened. Her eldest son replied, “War”—and showed his mother the news reports of explosions across the country, since she didn’t believe him at first.
Nikopol went to the Territorial Defense Center. There were already quite a few people there. Artem was offered the chance to enlist in the “Dnipro” brigades—the 25th Airborne Brigade or the 93rd Mechanized Brigade “Kholodny Yar.” But Dubyna decided to go to his people in Mariupol. He found out that a group of “Azov” fighters from Zolochiv had set off for Mariupol, and the next morning they picked him up on the Zaporizhzhia highway.
“I said goodbye to my family. There were a lot of emotions and tears; they asked me to take care of myself. I was the only one on the bus with a firearm; the rest had knives. I always say we were heading to Mariupol ‘armed only with knives,’” Artem laughs.
When we arrived in Zaporizhzhia, at a National Guard unit, they issued us weapons, ammunition, and even one RPG. They were told to head to Melitopol and prepare to stop a possible tank breakthrough.
While the men were getting equipped, they were redirected to the Zaporizhzhia airport, where enemy paratroopers might land. Border guards and National Guard troops were already at the airport.
“We took up positions and set up our combat stations. We waited in the waiting area. When it became clear that no one was coming, we contacted our unit commander and told him we were heading to Mariupol. He gave us the go-ahead. We took two buses—the kind used at the airport to transport passengers from the terminal to the plane. I was riding in the same bus that had recently taken me to my flight to Istanbul.”
We arrived in Mariupol that evening. Denis Prokopenko, nicknamed “Redis,” the commander of the then-Azov National Guard regiment, thanked us for coming, and the guys began heading off to their respective units. Artem was assigned to the press office, which he had left two years earlier. There were already several camera operators there, and Dubyna was the only one writing the articles.
A few days later, Valeria Subotina, “Nava,” called—they’d met back in 2016, when Artem had just joined “Azov” and she was already serving there. She asked if she could join them.
“Of course, we should have kicked her out of the city. But I realize she would have refused. I explained to her that she needed to come to the unit and register. So Valeria rejoined “Azov,” and the two of us started writing the articles together.”
One of the 5%, or Why Artem Can’t Play the Lottery
In early April, there was a shortage of personnel at the front lines in besieged Mariupol, so nearly all “staff” officers were assigned to combat duties. Artem was no exception. His position was supposed to be an observation post, but almost immediately he found himself on the front lines.
On April 18, he and another staff officer from the rapid response team returned from their shift. A Russian offensive began on the other flank.
“We quickly reinforced our ranks and ran over there. An enemy sniper was active there; he’d wounded several people. He fired at my face but hit my cheekbone and neck,” Dubyna recounts. “Three days later, I opened my eyes in the hospital at ‘Zalizya.’ I was lying on a stretcher on the floor. I didn’t feel any pain. The doctor was explaining something to me. I didn’t understand a thing. I turned my head to the right, and there were several dozen wounded people, all on stretchers. I looked to the left—and there were even more wounded.
It was good that I saw Nava, who had suffered serious injuries three days before me. Her presence helped me regain my memory a little, because I didn’t understand who I was or where I was. The first names I remembered were my parents’. By the time I tried to recall the medic’s call sign, he had already left. I kept turning the name over and over in my head, because the moment I let my guard down, I’d forget it.
Then I played a game. Well, what kind of game? I was telling a story and couldn’t remember a word, so I described it in whole sentences, and the people around me tried to guess it until I said, “That’s it!”—and then I’d keep going.”
When “Zalizyak” came under fire, Nikopol was moved to another bunker, where they gave him painkillers and changed his bandages. There wasn’t enough food; his fellow nurses and a fellow soldier shared their rations with him.
There wasn’t enough medicine, not even saline solution. Artem lost a lot of blood due to his injuries. To survive, Dubyna’s body began “eating” itself. As a result, he lost 25 kilograms.
“I looked like I’d come out of a concentration camp; my bones were literally covered only by skin. I tried to help Nava, but it didn’t go well at all: I wrote slowly, and it was hard to call those scribbles ‘texts.’
My head was constantly spinning, even when I was lying down. I had to get up gradually. Once I stood up too quickly, lost my balance, took a step back, and hit the back of my head on a pipe.
One of my comrades said I was lucky. I was so angry at him: how is a neck injury “lucky”? And only recently did I realize what he meant. I was lucky to have survived.
According to some estimates, only 5% of those wounded in the neck survive. That’s why people used to say I shouldn’t play the lottery because I’d already used up all my luck,
” – Artem laughs.
His injury still causes dizziness, memory problems, and difficulty orienting himself in space. It’s hard for Nikopol to climb stairs or ride an escalator; the left side of his head is constantly numb and itchy—it feels like it’s just solid bone. Doctors suspect that the nerves may have healed improperly. But he can’t get a CT scan because several small metal fragments are still lodged in his neck.
Capture. The Olenivka
Prison Camp On May 16, 2022, an order came to cease the defense of Mariupol in order to preserve the lives and health of the Ukrainian defenders and to leave the bunkers of the Azovstal plant. Redis announced it. They spoke of “honorable captivity.”
“The Russians promised us certain conditions, which they did not honor. We were told that we would be able to call our families, buy cigarettes and sugar, and that we wouldn’t be beaten. At first, they really didn’t touch us. But gradually, things got worse and worse,” says Nikopol.
The defenders of “Azovstal” were taken to a penal colony in Olenivka, near Dokuchaevsk, in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast.
On July 29, 2022, the Russians carried out one of the most cynical acts of terrorism in the entire history of the war, effectively executing more than fifty prisoners.
Artem recalls: The occupiers often used the prisoners as human shields—they placed “Grad” rocket launchers near the prison fence and fired from there at Ukrainian military positions, knowing there would be no retaliation. The same thing happened at the end of July.
“They pass off the explosions as shelling by Ukrainian artillery. One of our guys, who was held captive, said that ‘Wagner Group’ members were involved in preparing the attack.” They themselves cleared away the rubble afterward. And they allowed only their own ‘experts’ to examine the site, who claimed it was Ukrainian shelling. But the Ukrainian military had never fired on the barracks before.
And a day later, when the Russians transferred only a group of ‘Azov’ fighters to that barracks, the terrorist attack took place. At night, we heard an explosion. Then—screams. The Russians refused to let the wounded be taken to Donetsk for a very long time. The guys helped each other out, bandaging their wounds with T-shirts, whatever they could find. They tried to pull their comrades out of that burning wreckage. “They weren’t allowed to leave until they’d checked the lists,” Nikopol recalls.
At the prison camp in Olenivka, there was some way to follow the news: some of the prisoners were allowed to keep their cell phones. Nikopol knew his hometown was under fire; his parents were still there, and his younger sister was in Dnipro. Artem believed that if the situation worsened, his mom and dad would move in with their daughter. His girlfriend Olya had left for Germany with their daughter. Over the next two years, Dubyna heard nothing at all about his family or his home.
Taganrog and Kamyshin. Russian hell with Red Cross
parcels that never arrived On September 26, 2022, the prisoners from Olenivka were transported to Taganrog, Russia. There, a living hell of torture and abuse began. This continued at the next prison camp—in Kamyshin, Volgograd Oblast, near the Kazakh border, where the prisoners were transferred a year later.
Dubyna recounts: the light in the cell stayed on around the clock. At night, they were forbidden to cover their heads with a blanket or their hands. They had to lie perfectly still, “like a soldier.” Ukrainian prisoners of war could sleep only when they “passed out” from exhaustion.
In winter, there was a period when they were forbidden to pull the blanket up above their waists. So, in addition to torture by light, there was torture by the cold.
A surveillance camera monitored the prisoners. The slightest act of disobedience meant torture.
“The fact that we were from ‘Azov’ was like a red rag to a bull for them. The guys were beaten for having tattoos of the kolovrot—an ancient Slavic symbol. And yet, I saw several prison guards with kolovrots tattooed on their arms.”
There was virtually no medical care. When a prisoner had a toothache, the only treatment was extraction. People’s hands and feet festered for years.
“I still have marks from the stun gun—they’re already two years old. Marks from being beaten with a pipe—they’re over a year old,” says Artem.
The bruises from the pipe are the result of a trip “to the bathhouse.” Once a week, the prisoners were allowed to wash. When they took off their outer clothing, they were beaten.
“You had less than a minute to wash; there was no chance to dry off. You’d just pull your clothes on over your wet body, and they’d beat you again with rubber batons, pipes, and stun guns. They used the stun guns on the most sensitive areas: elbows, neck, armpits, and head. Sometimes, after the ‘bath,’ my back would be covered in dots from the stun gun. The burns also took many months to heal.
Or they’d use a “tapik”—they’d attach terminals [from a Soviet TA-57 field telephone] to your fingers or feet and run an electric current through them. It feels like all your muscles are tearing and all your bones are breaking. This is a very harrowing topic. The blood vessels in my eyes burst, my hands shook for a very long time—I couldn’t even bring a piece of bread to my mouth properly—they were trembling uncontrollably,” says the man released from captivity.
When Artem was in Kamyshin, representatives from the Red Cross came to visit them. The prisoners were prepared for the visit for a week: they were “trained” to shout “Glory to Russia,” say “Citizen Commander,” and stand at attention.
“They changed the clothes of those who needed it. They gave us thread and needles to mend our clothes or blankets, even though they hadn’t given us any for weeks. Classic Soviet-style showmanship. They threatened us—if anyone dared to write a complaint to the ICRC, it would be the end for all of us. Then an inspector quietly approached and told us to choose two volunteers who would write messages to their families on small pieces of paper. They chose me and one other man. I wrote to my mom that I was alive and well, that everything was fine, that I wasn’t being beaten, and asked her to pass on my regards to the families of those who were in the cell with me, but then they ordered me to cross out the names.
Then they brought in books and a chess set. Only one box containing a chessboard and pieces was passed around the floor; it made its way into our cell once every 15 days.
We also received care packages [from the ICRC]: medicine, cigarettes, sweets, and thermal underwear. One of us would pick up the package: you walk down the hallway, hunched over, hands behind your back, but in clean clothes; in front of the office, they order you to stand up straight—you straighten up, take the box, say thank you, turn around, and leave. But around the corner, a guard forces you to put the package down, punches you in the gut, and you return to your cell, hunched over. Not a single package reached any cell. Everything was taken apart by FSIN (Russian Federal Penitentiary Service—“N”) staff.
I would very much like to speak with representatives of the Red Cross and tell them that they’re spending sponsors’ money to feed Russian prison guards, and this in no way improves the lives of people in captivity. “Not a single person felt any warmer or ate any better because of these packages.”
Who Is Redis
Sleeping With? During the interrogations at Dubyna, they tried to pry out what was happening at headquarters, what negotiations “Azov” commander Radis was conducting, what orders he was giving, and who else was there. Artem replied that he did not work at headquarters and that access there was restricted.
“They didn’t believe me; they were trying to beat the information out of me. And over the course of these nearly two and a half years, I was essentially answering the same questions over and over. Among them was this one: ‘Who did Radis sleep with?’ I said, “Look, he has a wife. And I’m not even sure Redis slept at all.” – “You’re full of s***. Up against the wall!” “They’re just crazy,” recalls Nikopol. “After the beating—back to the chair, and the same thing all over again: about headquarters, the last names and ranks of people I know only by their call signs, because that’s the only way we communicate in ‘Azov.’” I told them, “I can only repeat what I’ve already said.” And again, they put me up against the wall.
They tried to beat my rank out of me, too. I was commissioned as a senior lieutenant; after I was wounded, they supposedly promoted me to captain, but I never saw the order. So they beat me for not knowing.”
During searches, we had to stand facing the wall without touching it, with our arms and legs spread as wide as possible. If you’re lucky, they’ll just search you. Or they might beat you on the torso and legs just to make it hurt.
Based on Artem’s observations, Russian prison guards do not consider themselves support staff; rather, they view their work as a war against prisoners. And they just beat people because they can.
“They beat me even for the sound of the letter ‘g.’ When I said, ‘I’m from the city of Nikopol,’ they corrected me, saying there’s no such letter as ‘g’—I should say, ‘from the city’—and then they started beating me. After that, I tried to choose words that didn’t contain that letter…”
While in captivity, Dubyna was also struck by the Chechens who sometimes arrived at the Kamyshin prison on rotation. They asked the Russians, “Why torment an unarmed man?
”
“The Chechens asked our guys if they’d fired at the enemy. The guys replied, ‘They shot at me, and I shot back.’ The prison guard responded, ‘Good for you. That was war. Now you’re a prisoner.’ They asked me what was wrong with my neck—was it a shrapnel wound? I said it was from a sniper. They said I was lucky. The Russians reacted to that answer by saying, “You’re a sniper?!” I quickly explained that no, otherwise they would have beaten me to death,” Artem recalls the behavior of various prison guards.
Return to the Mainland
Some prisoners, Dubyna says, “set their sights on” specific exchange dates. For example, New Year’s—isn’t that a good reason to be included on the release lists and return home? But when the exchange doesn’t happen on Christmas, or Easter, or any other “hoped-for” date, people lose heart.
“I never set any specific dates for myself. I understood that I could be held captive for as long as ten years. I just knew that an exchange would happen, and as for when—well, that’s just a matter of luck. It’s just important to remember the defenders of Mariupol, who were surrounded for so long and are now in captivity. We need to get as many prisoners as possible out of there. I understand that the exchange process is complex and involves negotiations. But I’d like to see even more effort put into this,” reflects the Azov soldier.
On the morning of September 9, 2024, the door to his cell swung open: “Dubyna, pack your things and get out!” Usually, such a shout meant a move to another cell or a transfer to another facility. This time, however, the guard added: “Let him leave the toothpaste and soap—he won’t need them anymore.” So, the transfer was canceled.
That day, three Ukrainian prisoners were carried down to the first floor on mattresses. They were taken to change clothes. The clothes were hand-me-downs.
“I haven’t seen my own things since Olenivka. A special forces soldier took my boots in Taganrog during the ‘intake’ process.” Interestingly, almost none of the ‘Azov’ fighters had ‘Talans’ (boots issued to Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers—‘N’), but the Russians really liked those boots. Compared to theirs, these are extremely modern and cool boots,” Nikopol says with a smile. “We changed our clothes. And they stopped beating us. Although I heard that they were still taking others ‘to the bathhouse.’ Then we signed a few documents without reading them—they never gave us a chance to do so.”
The prisoners were given two boxes each of “prisoner” ration packs. Next came a few hours in a police van to the train station. Prisoner cars. People from other detention centers were already there, including our marines.
“There were girls, too. We didn’t see them, but we heard them naming their last names and places of residence: Mariupol, Mangush, Yalta. I realized they were ours, and I was surprised. I thought the women had been exchanged long ago,” Artem notes.
The journey took a long time. The next day, we reached Bryansk. From the train—back into police vans, and on like that to Novozybkov, to the local pretrial detention center. But this time there was no “intake procedure”: they didn’t beat us or make us change our clothes there. We just had to run around the floors with a bag over our heads: various people inspected the prisoners, including a doctor. Then—another night in a cell, an early wake-up call, and loading onto buses.
“That’s when we realized it was an exchange. Because they’d never taken us by bus before. They drove us to Belarus, and from there we crossed the border into the Chernihiv region. That’s how they exchanged us,” says Artem Dubyna.
The “Azov” soldier believed they were home when, no longer having to keep their heads down, the passengers got off the buses onto “Velyka Zemlya”—that’s what they called the free territory of Ukraine in Mariupol and while in captivity. The freed soldiers shook hands with their comrades who had come to greet them and were able to call their families.
There was also a conversation with Denis Prokopenko,
commander of the 12th Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine “Azov.”
“He said he was glad we had returned, that he wanted us to recover, and that he was waiting for us at the unit. Then he apologized for not being able to talk long, as he had to lead the battle. We wished him success in battle and asked him to pass on our regards to the guys in the unit,” recalls Nikopol.
And back home, we can finally speak Ukrainian without fear of being beaten, and greet each other with “Glory to Ukraine!” without the threat of signing our own death warrant.
“Sometimes in captivity, we spoke Ukrainian among ourselves, but it was a risk. Occasionally, the guards would ask about one Ukrainian word or another. In Taganrog, there was one guard who would always ask how to say ‘report.’ When we answered that it was “dopovid,” he’d say, ‘Oh, good for you, you still remember your language,’” Dubyna describes.
The dream of my mother’s borscht
While Ukrainian defenders return home after prisoner exchanges looking pale and emaciated, Russian soldiers look as if they’ve just come back from a health resort.
“I saw a video about the detention facilities for Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine. One Russian [in a comment to a journalist] said he’d like something new on the menu—a different kind of salad. I thought, ‘What?!’ In two years, I haven’t eaten a single fresh tomato or cucumber, and I haven’t seen a single apple. Just pickled cucumbers and tomatoes that should have been thrown out long ago, but instead they fed them to us. We had to eat quickly. At the prison in Kamyshin, the “food handlers” even organized competitions where the winner was whoever’s floor finished eating first. They didn’t scoop the food onto our plates—they just plopped it down. “The plates would just fly through the cell window,” Artem recalls.
In Russia, our prisoners were fed porridge, often unsalted. For the first course—soup: water with potatoes. Sometimes they’d pour water over sauerkraut, boil it, and that was considered shchi or cabbage soup. They might serve the potatoes half-raw.
“I never attached much importance to food—I’d quickly eat whatever they gave me. I think it was easier for me than for those who love to eat. True, even in captivity, I still craved my mom’s borscht, cake, and a hot dog from a gas station. I’ve already had my mom’s borscht and a hot dog. But not the cake yet,” Nikopol smiles.
As for spiritual nourishment, the prisoners of war had the opportunity to read: in Taganrog, they were given one book per person; in Kamyshin, one per cell. Mostly classics, of course, in Russian, but there were no outright propaganda books. One man in Artem’s cell had poor eyesight, so Nikopol read aloud to him.
After returning to Ukraine, he contacted the families of all his cellmates and acquaintances and told them about the prisoners’ physical and mental health.
“I told them: Believe in your children, in your husbands. Because they think of you every day and miss you very much. The main thing is to believe in them and know that they will definitely be returned. Your faith will help and sustain you,” Artem recounts the advice he gave to the captives’ families. He adds: “The Russians’ main goal is to break us morally. They do this very professionally.”
Life-Saving Dialogues in His Mind
Dubyna, the captive, wanted nothing more than to see his family. In the pitch-black darkness of captivity, this desire was a spark that shone, warmed him, and gave him hope. He even communicated with his family and friends in his mind. I would make up conversations about everything under the sun.
“Some were pleasant, some were argumentative, and some were playful. I’d imagine someone teasing me or me teasing someone else. It would just pop into my head and unfold. Once I was free again, back on the mainland, I realized it had been a very interesting experience. Although I don’t remember a single conversation, and there was no way to record them,” the officer says.
Artem would mentally adapt Ukrainian songs for his family, thinking of his mother. Every morning, he would repeat to himself “The Song About the Towel.” And the Ukrainian national anthem.
For his beloved, he rewrote the lyrics from the song “She”:
“My beautiful Olenka,
My golden Olya,
I love you, Olya,
You’re as beautiful as life itself.”
Artem also learned the gold prospector’s song from Jack London’s stories:
“…Just a year will fly by, and time will pass,
I’ll return home, my beauty.
If you’re still faithful then,
We’ll have a little wedding together”
—and later quoted it to his wife, deeply moving her.
Nikopol had no doubt whatsoever: his family would have the strength to wait for him. This faith was fueled by words of support from his beloved, which she had spoken even during those rare phone calls to besieged Mariupol and which Artem remembered well.
“When you’re in captivity, they beat you, they torture you, and then you go back to your cell. It’s like a safe place where they won’t beat you. In the cell, you talk with three others just like yourself. You’ve already talked about everything in the world. But the world keeps on going—people have to go to work, go to the store, carry on with their lives, interact with others… I understood that it was hard for my family to wait. But I knew for sure that they’d wait for me,” says Dubyna. “Because [among the prisoners] there were those who doubted their significant others and weren’t shy about saying so. There were people who regretted having survived; otherwise, their children would have received compensation. But now—they’ll grow up without a father and ask, ‘Uncle, who are you?’ I’d tell them, ‘Don’t talk nonsense. You have grown-up children. They remember their dad!”
Love in Times of Trouble
After college, Dubyna held several jobs: he worked in television in Dnipro and Nikopol, and in the press office of “Interpipe.” During the ATO in 2015, Artem was mobilized and appointed platoon commander in one of the National Guard brigades. His first deployment was to a position near Mariupol; on his second deployment to the same location, he went as a company commander. There, Artem met fighters from the Azov Regiment, filled out the paperwork, and in early 2016 transferred to Azov’s press service. He eventually became its head and was discharged in early 2020 with the rank of senior lieutenant.
“I wanted to live a civilian life and start a family,” Dubyna explains. “I realized that it would be difficult to do that while in the military. So I decided to look for ‘the one’ as a civilian.”
Artem loved badminton. He used to go to practice before he was mobilized, and he returned to the sport in 2021. He met Olga at practice. He liked her, but Dubyna couldn’t bring himself to ask her out for coffee.
“We had a group chat on our messaging app with everyone who attended the classes. And one day, I got a message from her. We chatted a bit and finally went out for coffee. She was the one who suggested it,” Artem says with an awkward smile. “Our relationship developed pretty quickly. A couple of months later, we flew to Turkey for a vacation and celebrated New Year’s Eve 2022 together. When we returned to Nikopol, everything was moving toward the wedding. But then the war intervened. “In the end, we got married, though later than we’d planned.”
The wedding was in jeopardy: due to his injury, Artem lost the ability to come up with quick, logical solutions. And that, he admits, throws him off track. Whereas before he would spend a few minutes and a couple of phone calls on a problem, now it requires a lot of thought about who to call and what to say.
“I’m very grateful to my friend Nava. At some point, she just took charge of the planning. Because it already seemed to me that it wouldn’t happen—I wasn’t able to decide anything,” Dubyna smiles. “Nava sorted everything out in literally a couple of hours. All we had to do was show up and exchange rings.”
News that made an impact: the blowing up of the Kakhovka dam, FPV drones, the Kursk operation
Captivity is not only imprisonment but also informational isolation. On the “radio”—as they called the device in prison, which played the Russian national anthem, propaganda songs, and the Russian perspective on history—there was no news at all. The prison guards didn’t talk about politics or the war. The only source of “fresh” information was Ukrainian prisoners of war who had been captured later.
“I was surprised that the Kakhovka Reservoir was gone. For a long time, I didn’t believe the news. The city of Nikopol was surrounded on three sides by that reservoir. Throughout my childhood and youth, I used to go to the beach and go fishing there. But now, where the water used to be, there’s a forest. On the other hand, this marks the return of the floodplains that used to exist where the reservoir once stood. Nature reclaimed its territory very quickly. Maybe it’s for the best,” Artem muses. “But this is a crime against the environment and against the people who live downstream and around the reservoir. After all, the towns were simply left without water. This problem had to be solved. And for me, it was a mystery how that could be done.” “It turned out they solved it quickly.”
The widespread use of FPV drones on the front lines came as a revelation to Dubyna on the very day of his release. When they were taken prisoner at Azovstal, this practice wasn’t yet common.
“The guys who were meeting us were talking about something like that, and I was listening but didn’t understand. I said, ‘Hey, stop and explain—what are you talking about?!’—‘Well, drones, unmanned aerial vehicles.’—‘And…?’” And then they realized we didn’t know anything about it at all. They started explaining how they work. It seemed like some kind of war of the future to us, — Artem smiles. — Back when we were fighting, quadcopters could carry VOG-25 grenades at most, or an 82-mm mine. But here, drones are blowing up tanks—they can even blow up an apartment or a house! Now is the best time for gamers to join military units and work with the right joysticks.”
One of the names on the prisoner exchange list was a soldier of ours who had been taken prisoner at the very start of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Kursk Operation. He told the guys about it.
“I couldn’t wrap my head around it: we hadn’t yet recaptured our own territories, yet at the same time we’d crossed the border and seized areas of a nuclear power. This was truly significant news, demonstrating that we are capable of seizing substantial territory and holding onto it. And this was the first incursion into Russian territory since World War II,” Artem Dubyna says enthusiastically.
On faith in justice and sorrow for Mariupol
Callsign Nikopol believes that the Russians will experience firsthand everything that he and our other soldiers went through in captivity. He believes in a civil war in Russia or other socio-political upheavals that will lead to the collapse of the Russian Federation. Perhaps this will happen after Putin’s death.
“For a hypothetical Hague-style trial to take place, Moscow would have to be captured and the top political leadership of the Russian Federation arrested. Right now, this is unlikely to be achieved by Ukrainian forces alone. And the world is in no hurry to get involved in this war,” muses the National Guard officer. “Except for North Korea. But there’s a catch—it’s on the other side. We’re expecting South Korean special forces on our side. Or they might simply cross the 38th parallel and settle everything on the spot.”
Artem would like every Russian to see his city being shelled and destroyed, just as Russian troops destroyed Mariupol or Bakhmut.
“The Drama Theater in Mariupol survived the Nazi occupation and the communist regime, but was destroyed by the defenders of the ‘Russian World,’ even though it housed almost exclusively Russian-speakers, mostly women and children,” Artem Dubyna emphasizes. “At first, the Russians boasted that they had destroyed the ‘Azov’ headquarters there, which had never been in the drama theater. Then they forced our captured artillerymen to take responsibility for destroying the theater, and they forced us to testify that we had supposedly witnessed it. I told them, ‘Do you realize we were already out of ammunition? All our artillery had already been transferred to the infantry by then. And if you understand even a little about the trajectory of shells, you know a shell can’t just fall out of the sky. That’s not how cannons work. The same thing happened earlier with the Mariupol maternity hospital, where the Russians also ‘destroyed the command post.’”
Dubyna admits that he didn’t particularly like Mariupol. Two factories in the city center, with smoke billowing into residential neighborhoods. However, Mariupol had changed a lot over the past few years, even though the war was always nearby. Many cultural centers, creative hubs, shops, and cafes had sprung up in the city, and concerts and festivals were held there.
“It’s a shame about Mariupol. I saw it transform from a gray industrial city into a normal, modern Ukrainian city. And they simply destroyed it. Azovstal no longer exists. The remains were cut up for scrap metal and sold off. I saw graves in the courtyards of high-rises, where neighbors buried their fallen neighbors. Just a small cross and a mound of earth over a shallow grave. People thought it would all be over quickly, and they didn’t leave even as the Russians were simply destroying the city, block by block. I saw people cooking over bonfires in the streets because there was no gas or electricity. I saw how people helped each other survive. I saw civilians looting stores. I saw the market shelled with “Grad” rockets, and a body remained, badly mangled by shrapnel. I think it was a woman. People are walking around, just getting by—and in that moment, a shell flies into an apartment on one of the middle floors of a high-rise, explodes there, sending pieces of furniture flying, and everything starts to burn,” recalls the Azov soldier, thinking back to that spring of 2022 in Mariupol. He still finds it hard to find the words to describe the city that was dying in terrible agony right before his eyes.
“One of my local comrades’ mother died during the siege; she was buried in the yard of a private home, and a few days later, his sister gave birth to a daughter in that same house. Just like in the old days—they heated some water and gathered up some rags. They later left for the mainland, and everything is fine with them now,” Artem shares.
Mariupol fell because the Russians bombarded the city from the air, the sea, and the ground—with missiles, artillery, and everything they had, Dubyna believes. “I think if our infantry had been facing only Russian infantry, we’d still be holding our ground. When they advanced with just infantry, they suffered huge losses. Our guys ‘wore them down.’”
“We’ve finished defending Mariupol, but we haven’t finished defending Ukraine.”
Artem came to his interview at the “Novynarnia” newsroom straight from the dentist—his fillings had “fallen out.” If only that were all. It’s simpler to say that he doesn’t need treatment. He’s already had laser vision correction in Nikopol—his eyesight started to get worse while in captivity. His back, neck, knees, and calves hurt: after sitting for a long time, he can’t walk normally right away.
“They often beat us hard, especially on the Achilles tendon. I’ve already developed pneumonia here; they drained fluid from my right lung. My joints will need treatment,” the Azov soldier continues.
Despite his health condition, Artem leads an active life and participates in campaigns calling for the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war. At one such event, a woman approached him and said she was the mother of “Hryan,” whom Nikopol knew well (Oleksandr Hryanyk was one of those who flew into besieged Mariupol by helicopter and was killed on May 8, 2022, by an enemy aerial bomb).
“It was as if a switch had flipped inside me. Up until then, I’d been forming sentences normally. But there I was, standing there, realizing what I wanted to say to her, but I’d only manage to say two or three words before my mind would go blank; I’d apologize, and the same thing would happen over and over. I thanked her for her son, because her son is extraordinary. As soon as we parted ways, my speech returned. I guess it’s because I valued him so much, and the loss of this person was harder for me than that of anyone else,” says Artem Dubyna.
“There are a few people you remember, and it really turns your insides upside down. I still often think of Molnezar. A young guy—his child was born literally right before the invasion (Second Lieutenant Dmytro Tarityn, a political scientist by training, who died on April 15, 2022, at “Bastion”—one of the Azovstal buildings—”N”). Once, we were at a festival in Mariupol, and he really liked a girl. I told him, “Let’s go over and introduce ourselves.” He listened to me, and that’s how our family was born. I thought of him very often while I was in captivity,” says Artem.
National Guard Captain Dubyna would like to return to duty and keep “moving forward.” Maybe not running through the trenches anymore—because if he runs, his knees will “give out.” In Nikopol, he could write or do some organizational work.
He is convinced: “We have finished defending Mariupol, but we haven’t finished defending Ukraine. My motivation is to see this through so that my children don’t have to live in fear of sirens, but are instead guaranteed lasting peace and a strong defense capability. It’s very important that military service be an honor for Ukrainian citizens. That soldiers be valued and provided for at a level that allows them—even at the risk of losing their lives and health—to continue defending the country.”
“My life has been tied to the army since 2015, so I am determined to continue my service,” says Artem Dubyna, who was released from captivity.
Author: Anastasia Fedchenko
Artem Dubyna—that’s the name I looked for on every list of Ukrainian soldiers released in prisoner exchanges. I asked about him from every single member of the “old guard” of the Azov Regiment, who are so rarely released from Russian prisons. And on September 13, 2024—my mother’s birthday, the day my friend Olia Simonova was killed, and the day I registered at the maternity hospital because of my pregnancy), Dubyna finally came home.
I’ve known Artem for half my life. He was a fifth-year student in the Department of Mass Communication Systems and Media at the Oles Honchar Dnipro National University when I started my freshman year. He also lived and laughed on my floor in the dorm, practically in the next room. We met again with Artem many years later on the Svitlodarsk Arc, when his unit was deployed on a “real” rotation for the first time in a long while. Senior Lieutenant Artem Dubyna, head of the Azov Regiment’s press service, sported a neat mustache and was serious and precise in his work. After that, he was demobilized and rejoined the ranks of the National Guard. And in May 2022, the soldier with the call sign “Nikopol” (named after his hometown) was taken prisoner by the Russians along with other “Azov” fighters in Mariupol.
I tried to keep Nikopol’s spirits up with messages while he was at Azovstal. And I waited nearly two and a half years for his release. After this brief look back at the past, you can understand why this interview is so important and special to me. And why Artem is so sincere and candid.
“Azov” fighter Artem Dubyna recounts how he endured Russian captivity without breaking. What trials, interrogations, and torments he had to endure. About the war and the siege of Mariupol. About the conversations and songs in his head that played on repeat in his prison cell. About his brothers-in-arms and his sister-in-arms. About his liberation from captivity, the “time machine,” and emerging from informational isolation. About the search for happiness and the love he found. About treatment, “getting back on his feet,” and the future as well.
“We were on edge on the way to Mariupol”
On February 23, 2022, Artem Dubyna and his fiancée Olga were visiting his parents to celebrate his mother’s birthday. They went to bed late, and a couple of hours later, the former “Azov” soldier was awakened by explosions. He immediately realized: a major war had begun—one he had never doubted was coming.
“I thought: don’t start it now—let’s wait until after the wedding, after we have children… I mean, I understood that war was inevitable, but I hoped it wouldn’t happen right now. And that belief kept me going, because I had someone to live for.”
Artem’s backpack was still packed from when he returned from the Joint Forces Operation zone; next to it were his body armor, helmet, and hunting rifle—all ready for action. Dubyna went to take a shower. His mother, who always got up before everyone else, was surprised that her son had beaten her to it. She asked what had happened. Her eldest son replied, “War”—and showed his mother the news reports of explosions across the country, since she didn’t believe him at first.
Nikopol went to the Territorial Defense Center. There were already quite a few people there. Artem was offered the chance to enlist in the “Dnipro” brigades—the 25th Airborne Brigade or the 93rd Mechanized Brigade “Kholodny Yar.” But Dubyna decided to go to his people in Mariupol. He found out that a group of “Azov” fighters from Zolochiv had set off for Mariupol, and the next morning they picked him up on the Zaporizhzhia highway.
“I said goodbye to my family. There were a lot of emotions and tears; they asked me to take care of myself. I was the only one on the bus with a firearm; the rest had knives. I always say we were heading to Mariupol ‘armed only with knives,’” Artem laughs.
When we arrived in Zaporizhzhia, at a National Guard unit, they issued us weapons, ammunition, and even one RPG. They were told to head to Melitopol and prepare to stop a possible tank breakthrough.
While the men were getting equipped, they were redirected to the Zaporizhzhia airport, where enemy paratroopers might land. Border guards and National Guard troops were already at the airport.
“We took up positions and set up our combat stations. We waited in the waiting area. When it became clear that no one was coming, we contacted our unit commander and told him we were heading to Mariupol. He gave us the go-ahead. We took two buses—the kind used at the airport to transport passengers from the terminal to the plane. I was riding in the same bus that had recently taken me to my flight to Istanbul.”
We arrived in Mariupol that evening. Denis Prokopenko, nicknamed “Redis,” the commander of the then-Azov National Guard regiment, thanked us for coming, and the guys began heading off to their respective units. Artem was assigned to the press office, which he had left two years earlier. There were already several camera operators there, and Dubyna was the only one writing the articles.
A few days later, Valeria Subotina, “Nava,” called—they’d met back in 2016, when Artem had just joined “Azov” and she was already serving there. She asked if she could join them.
“Of course, we should have kicked her out of the city. But I realize she would have refused. I explained to her that she needed to come to the unit and register. So Valeria rejoined “Azov,” and the two of us started writing the articles together.”
One of the 5%, or Why Artem Can’t Play the Lottery
In early April, there was a shortage of personnel at the front lines in besieged Mariupol, so nearly all “staff” officers were assigned to combat duties. Artem was no exception. His position was supposed to be an observation post, but almost immediately he found himself on the front lines.
On April 18, he and another staff officer from the rapid response team returned from their shift. A Russian offensive began on the other flank.
“We quickly reinforced our ranks and ran over there. An enemy sniper was active there; he’d wounded several people. He fired at my face but hit my cheekbone and neck,” Dubyna recounts. “Three days later, I opened my eyes in the hospital at ‘Zalizya.’ I was lying on a stretcher on the floor. I didn’t feel any pain. The doctor was explaining something to me. I didn’t understand a thing. I turned my head to the right, and there were several dozen wounded people, all on stretchers. I looked to the left—and there were even more wounded.
It was good that I saw Nava, who had suffered serious injuries three days before me. Her presence helped me regain my memory a little, because I didn’t understand who I was or where I was. The first names I remembered were my parents’. By the time I tried to recall the medic’s call sign, he had already left. I kept turning the name over and over in my head, because the moment I let my guard down, I’d forget it.
Then I played a game. Well, what kind of game? I was telling a story and couldn’t remember a word, so I described it in whole sentences, and the people around me tried to guess it until I said, “That’s it!”—and then I’d keep going.”
When “Zalizyak” came under fire, Nikopol was moved to another bunker, where they gave him painkillers and changed his bandages. There wasn’t enough food; his fellow nurses and a fellow soldier shared their rations with him.
There wasn’t enough medicine, not even saline solution. Artem lost a lot of blood due to his injuries. To survive, Dubyna’s body began “eating” itself. As a result, he lost 25 kilograms.
“I looked like I’d come out of a concentration camp; my bones were literally covered only by skin. I tried to help Nava, but it didn’t go well at all: I wrote slowly, and it was hard to call those scribbles ‘texts.’
My head was constantly spinning, even when I was lying down. I had to get up gradually. Once I stood up too quickly, lost my balance, took a step back, and hit the back of my head on a pipe.
One of my comrades said I was lucky. I was so angry at him: how is a neck injury “lucky”? And only recently did I realize what he meant. I was lucky to have survived.
According to some estimates, only 5% of those wounded in the neck survive. That’s why people used to say I shouldn’t play the lottery because I’d already used up all my luck,
” – Artem laughs.
His injury still causes dizziness, memory problems, and difficulty orienting himself in space. It’s hard for Nikopol to climb stairs or ride an escalator; the left side of his head is constantly numb and itchy—it feels like it’s just solid bone. Doctors suspect that the nerves may have healed improperly. But he can’t get a CT scan because several small metal fragments are still lodged in his neck.
Capture. The Olenivka
Prison Camp On May 16, 2022, an order came to cease the defense of Mariupol in order to preserve the lives and health of the Ukrainian defenders and to leave the bunkers of the Azovstal plant. Redis announced it. They spoke of “honorable captivity.”
“The Russians promised us certain conditions, which they did not honor. We were told that we would be able to call our families, buy cigarettes and sugar, and that we wouldn’t be beaten. At first, they really didn’t touch us. But gradually, things got worse and worse,” says Nikopol.
The defenders of “Azovstal” were taken to a penal colony in Olenivka, near Dokuchaevsk, in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast.
On July 29, 2022, the Russians carried out one of the most cynical acts of terrorism in the entire history of the war, effectively executing more than fifty prisoners.
Artem recalls: The occupiers often used the prisoners as human shields—they placed “Grad” rocket launchers near the prison fence and fired from there at Ukrainian military positions, knowing there would be no retaliation. The same thing happened at the end of July.
“They pass off the explosions as shelling by Ukrainian artillery. One of our guys, who was held captive, said that ‘Wagner Group’ members were involved in preparing the attack.” They themselves cleared away the rubble afterward. And they allowed only their own ‘experts’ to examine the site, who claimed it was Ukrainian shelling. But the Ukrainian military had never fired on the barracks before.
And a day later, when the Russians transferred only a group of ‘Azov’ fighters to that barracks, the terrorist attack took place. At night, we heard an explosion. Then—screams. The Russians refused to let the wounded be taken to Donetsk for a very long time. The guys helped each other out, bandaging their wounds with T-shirts, whatever they could find. They tried to pull their comrades out of that burning wreckage. “They weren’t allowed to leave until they’d checked the lists,” Nikopol recalls.
At the prison camp in Olenivka, there was some way to follow the news: some of the prisoners were allowed to keep their cell phones. Nikopol knew his hometown was under fire; his parents were still there, and his younger sister was in Dnipro. Artem believed that if the situation worsened, his mom and dad would move in with their daughter. His girlfriend Olya had left for Germany with their daughter. Over the next two years, Dubyna heard nothing at all about his family or his home.
Taganrog and Kamyshin. Russian hell with Red Cross
parcels that never arrived On September 26, 2022, the prisoners from Olenivka were transported to Taganrog, Russia. There, a living hell of torture and abuse began. This continued at the next prison camp—in Kamyshin, Volgograd Oblast, near the Kazakh border, where the prisoners were transferred a year later.
Dubyna recounts: the light in the cell stayed on around the clock. At night, they were forbidden to cover their heads with a blanket or their hands. They had to lie perfectly still, “like a soldier.” Ukrainian prisoners of war could sleep only when they “passed out” from exhaustion.
In winter, there was a period when they were forbidden to pull the blanket up above their waists. So, in addition to torture by light, there was torture by the cold.
A surveillance camera monitored the prisoners. The slightest act of disobedience meant torture.
“The fact that we were from ‘Azov’ was like a red rag to a bull for them. The guys were beaten for having tattoos of the kolovrot—an ancient Slavic symbol. And yet, I saw several prison guards with kolovrots tattooed on their arms.”
There was virtually no medical care. When a prisoner had a toothache, the only treatment was extraction. People’s hands and feet festered for years.
“I still have marks from the stun gun—they’re already two years old. Marks from being beaten with a pipe—they’re over a year old,” says Artem.
The bruises from the pipe are the result of a trip “to the bathhouse.” Once a week, the prisoners were allowed to wash. When they took off their outer clothing, they were beaten.
“You had less than a minute to wash; there was no chance to dry off. You’d just pull your clothes on over your wet body, and they’d beat you again with rubber batons, pipes, and stun guns. They used the stun guns on the most sensitive areas: elbows, neck, armpits, and head. Sometimes, after the ‘bath,’ my back would be covered in dots from the stun gun. The burns also took many months to heal.
Or they’d use a “tapik”—they’d attach terminals [from a Soviet TA-57 field telephone] to your fingers or feet and run an electric current through them. It feels like all your muscles are tearing and all your bones are breaking. This is a very harrowing topic. The blood vessels in my eyes burst, my hands shook for a very long time—I couldn’t even bring a piece of bread to my mouth properly—they were trembling uncontrollably,” says the man released from captivity.
When Artem was in Kamyshin, representatives from the Red Cross came to visit them. The prisoners were prepared for the visit for a week: they were “trained” to shout “Glory to Russia,” say “Citizen Commander,” and stand at attention.
“They changed the clothes of those who needed it. They gave us thread and needles to mend our clothes or blankets, even though they hadn’t given us any for weeks. Classic Soviet-style showmanship. They threatened us—if anyone dared to write a complaint to the ICRC, it would be the end for all of us. Then an inspector quietly approached and told us to choose two volunteers who would write messages to their families on small pieces of paper. They chose me and one other man. I wrote to my mom that I was alive and well, that everything was fine, that I wasn’t being beaten, and asked her to pass on my regards to the families of those who were in the cell with me, but then they ordered me to cross out the names.
Then they brought in books and a chess set. Only one box containing a chessboard and pieces was passed around the floor; it made its way into our cell once every 15 days.
We also received care packages [from the ICRC]: medicine, cigarettes, sweets, and thermal underwear. One of us would pick up the package: you walk down the hallway, hunched over, hands behind your back, but in clean clothes; in front of the office, they order you to stand up straight—you straighten up, take the box, say thank you, turn around, and leave. But around the corner, a guard forces you to put the package down, punches you in the gut, and you return to your cell, hunched over. Not a single package reached any cell. Everything was taken apart by FSIN (Russian Federal Penitentiary Service—“N”) staff.
I would very much like to speak with representatives of the Red Cross and tell them that they’re spending sponsors’ money to feed Russian prison guards, and this in no way improves the lives of people in captivity. “Not a single person felt any warmer or ate any better because of these packages.”
Who Is Redis
Sleeping With? During the interrogations at Dubyna, they tried to pry out what was happening at headquarters, what negotiations “Azov” commander Radis was conducting, what orders he was giving, and who else was there. Artem replied that he did not work at headquarters and that access there was restricted.
“They didn’t believe me; they were trying to beat the information out of me. And over the course of these nearly two and a half years, I was essentially answering the same questions over and over. Among them was this one: ‘Who did Radis sleep with?’ I said, “Look, he has a wife. And I’m not even sure Redis slept at all.” – “You’re full of s***. Up against the wall!” “They’re just crazy,” recalls Nikopol. “After the beating—back to the chair, and the same thing all over again: about headquarters, the last names and ranks of people I know only by their call signs, because that’s the only way we communicate in ‘Azov.’” I told them, “I can only repeat what I’ve already said.” And again, they put me up against the wall.
They tried to beat my rank out of me, too. I was commissioned as a senior lieutenant; after I was wounded, they supposedly promoted me to captain, but I never saw the order. So they beat me for not knowing.”
During searches, we had to stand facing the wall without touching it, with our arms and legs spread as wide as possible. If you’re lucky, they’ll just search you. Or they might beat you on the torso and legs just to make it hurt.
Based on Artem’s observations, Russian prison guards do not consider themselves support staff; rather, they view their work as a war against prisoners. And they just beat people because they can.
“They beat me even for the sound of the letter ‘g.’ When I said, ‘I’m from the city of Nikopol,’ they corrected me, saying there’s no such letter as ‘g’—I should say, ‘from the city’—and then they started beating me. After that, I tried to choose words that didn’t contain that letter…”
While in captivity, Dubyna was also struck by the Chechens who sometimes arrived at the Kamyshin prison on rotation. They asked the Russians, “Why torment an unarmed man?
”
“The Chechens asked our guys if they’d fired at the enemy. The guys replied, ‘They shot at me, and I shot back.’ The prison guard responded, ‘Good for you. That was war. Now you’re a prisoner.’ They asked me what was wrong with my neck—was it a shrapnel wound? I said it was from a sniper. They said I was lucky. The Russians reacted to that answer by saying, “You’re a sniper?!” I quickly explained that no, otherwise they would have beaten me to death,” Artem recalls the behavior of various prison guards.
Return to the Mainland
Some prisoners, Dubyna says, “set their sights on” specific exchange dates. For example, New Year’s—isn’t that a good reason to be included on the release lists and return home? But when the exchange doesn’t happen on Christmas, or Easter, or any other “hoped-for” date, people lose heart.
“I never set any specific dates for myself. I understood that I could be held captive for as long as ten years. I just knew that an exchange would happen, and as for when—well, that’s just a matter of luck. It’s just important to remember the defenders of Mariupol, who were surrounded for so long and are now in captivity. We need to get as many prisoners as possible out of there. I understand that the exchange process is complex and involves negotiations. But I’d like to see even more effort put into this,” reflects the Azov soldier.
On the morning of September 9, 2024, the door to his cell swung open: “Dubyna, pack your things and get out!” Usually, such a shout meant a move to another cell or a transfer to another facility. This time, however, the guard added: “Let him leave the toothpaste and soap—he won’t need them anymore.” So, the transfer was canceled.
That day, three Ukrainian prisoners were carried down to the first floor on mattresses. They were taken to change clothes. The clothes were hand-me-downs.
“I haven’t seen my own things since Olenivka. A special forces soldier took my boots in Taganrog during the ‘intake’ process.” Interestingly, almost none of the ‘Azov’ fighters had ‘Talans’ (boots issued to Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers—‘N’), but the Russians really liked those boots. Compared to theirs, these are extremely modern and cool boots,” Nikopol says with a smile. “We changed our clothes. And they stopped beating us. Although I heard that they were still taking others ‘to the bathhouse.’ Then we signed a few documents without reading them—they never gave us a chance to do so.”
The prisoners were given two boxes each of “prisoner” ration packs. Next came a few hours in a police van to the train station. Prisoner cars. People from other detention centers were already there, including our marines.
“There were girls, too. We didn’t see them, but we heard them naming their last names and places of residence: Mariupol, Mangush, Yalta. I realized they were ours, and I was surprised. I thought the women had been exchanged long ago,” Artem notes.
The journey took a long time. The next day, we reached Bryansk. From the train—back into police vans, and on like that to Novozybkov, to the local pretrial detention center. But this time there was no “intake procedure”: they didn’t beat us or make us change our clothes there. We just had to run around the floors with a bag over our heads: various people inspected the prisoners, including a doctor. Then—another night in a cell, an early wake-up call, and loading onto buses.
“That’s when we realized it was an exchange. Because they’d never taken us by bus before. They drove us to Belarus, and from there we crossed the border into the Chernihiv region. That’s how they exchanged us,” says Artem Dubyna.
The “Azov” soldier believed they were home when, no longer having to keep their heads down, the passengers got off the buses onto “Velyka Zemlya”—that’s what they called the free territory of Ukraine in Mariupol and while in captivity. The freed soldiers shook hands with their comrades who had come to greet them and were able to call their families.
There was also a conversation with Denis Prokopenko,
commander of the 12th Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine “Azov.”
“He said he was glad we had returned, that he wanted us to recover, and that he was waiting for us at the unit. Then he apologized for not being able to talk long, as he had to lead the battle. We wished him success in battle and asked him to pass on our regards to the guys in the unit,” recalls Nikopol.
And back home, we can finally speak Ukrainian without fear of being beaten, and greet each other with “Glory to Ukraine!” without the threat of signing our own death warrant.
“Sometimes in captivity, we spoke Ukrainian among ourselves, but it was a risk. Occasionally, the guards would ask about one Ukrainian word or another. In Taganrog, there was one guard who would always ask how to say ‘report.’ When we answered that it was “dopovid,” he’d say, ‘Oh, good for you, you still remember your language,’” Dubyna describes.
The dream of my mother’s borscht
While Ukrainian defenders return home after prisoner exchanges looking pale and emaciated, Russian soldiers look as if they’ve just come back from a health resort.
“I saw a video about the detention facilities for Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine. One Russian [in a comment to a journalist] said he’d like something new on the menu—a different kind of salad. I thought, ‘What?!’ In two years, I haven’t eaten a single fresh tomato or cucumber, and I haven’t seen a single apple. Just pickled cucumbers and tomatoes that should have been thrown out long ago, but instead they fed them to us. We had to eat quickly. At the prison in Kamyshin, the “food handlers” even organized competitions where the winner was whoever’s floor finished eating first. They didn’t scoop the food onto our plates—they just plopped it down. “The plates would just fly through the cell window,” Artem recalls.
In Russia, our prisoners were fed porridge, often unsalted. For the first course—soup: water with potatoes. Sometimes they’d pour water over sauerkraut, boil it, and that was considered shchi or cabbage soup. They might serve the potatoes half-raw.
“I never attached much importance to food—I’d quickly eat whatever they gave me. I think it was easier for me than for those who love to eat. True, even in captivity, I still craved my mom’s borscht, cake, and a hot dog from a gas station. I’ve already had my mom’s borscht and a hot dog. But not the cake yet,” Nikopol smiles.
As for spiritual nourishment, the prisoners of war had the opportunity to read: in Taganrog, they were given one book per person; in Kamyshin, one per cell. Mostly classics, of course, in Russian, but there were no outright propaganda books. One man in Artem’s cell had poor eyesight, so Nikopol read aloud to him.
After returning to Ukraine, he contacted the families of all his cellmates and acquaintances and told them about the prisoners’ physical and mental health.
“I told them: Believe in your children, in your husbands. Because they think of you every day and miss you very much. The main thing is to believe in them and know that they will definitely be returned. Your faith will help and sustain you,” Artem recounts the advice he gave to the captives’ families. He adds: “The Russians’ main goal is to break us morally. They do this very professionally.”
Life-Saving Dialogues in His Mind
Dubyna, the captive, wanted nothing more than to see his family. In the pitch-black darkness of captivity, this desire was a spark that shone, warmed him, and gave him hope. He even communicated with his family and friends in his mind. I would make up conversations about everything under the sun.
“Some were pleasant, some were argumentative, and some were playful. I’d imagine someone teasing me or me teasing someone else. It would just pop into my head and unfold. Once I was free again, back on the mainland, I realized it had been a very interesting experience. Although I don’t remember a single conversation, and there was no way to record them,” the officer says.
Artem would mentally adapt Ukrainian songs for his family, thinking of his mother. Every morning, he would repeat to himself “The Song About the Towel.” And the Ukrainian national anthem.
For his beloved, he rewrote the lyrics from the song “She”:
“My beautiful Olenka,
My golden Olya,
I love you, Olya,
You’re as beautiful as life itself.”
Artem also learned the gold prospector’s song from Jack London’s stories:
“…Just a year will fly by, and time will pass,
I’ll return home, my beauty.
If you’re still faithful then,
We’ll have a little wedding together”
—and later quoted it to his wife, deeply moving her.
Nikopol had no doubt whatsoever: his family would have the strength to wait for him. This faith was fueled by words of support from his beloved, which she had spoken even during those rare phone calls to besieged Mariupol and which Artem remembered well.
“When you’re in captivity, they beat you, they torture you, and then you go back to your cell. It’s like a safe place where they won’t beat you. In the cell, you talk with three others just like yourself. You’ve already talked about everything in the world. But the world keeps on going—people have to go to work, go to the store, carry on with their lives, interact with others… I understood that it was hard for my family to wait. But I knew for sure that they’d wait for me,” says Dubyna. “Because [among the prisoners] there were those who doubted their significant others and weren’t shy about saying so. There were people who regretted having survived; otherwise, their children would have received compensation. But now—they’ll grow up without a father and ask, ‘Uncle, who are you?’ I’d tell them, ‘Don’t talk nonsense. You have grown-up children. They remember their dad!”
Love in Times of Trouble
After college, Dubyna held several jobs: he worked in television in Dnipro and Nikopol, and in the press office of “Interpipe.” During the ATO in 2015, Artem was mobilized and appointed platoon commander in one of the National Guard brigades. His first deployment was to a position near Mariupol; on his second deployment to the same location, he went as a company commander. There, Artem met fighters from the Azov Regiment, filled out the paperwork, and in early 2016 transferred to Azov’s press service. He eventually became its head and was discharged in early 2020 with the rank of senior lieutenant.
“I wanted to live a civilian life and start a family,” Dubyna explains. “I realized that it would be difficult to do that while in the military. So I decided to look for ‘the one’ as a civilian.”
Artem loved badminton. He used to go to practice before he was mobilized, and he returned to the sport in 2021. He met Olga at practice. He liked her, but Dubyna couldn’t bring himself to ask her out for coffee.
“We had a group chat on our messaging app with everyone who attended the classes. And one day, I got a message from her. We chatted a bit and finally went out for coffee. She was the one who suggested it,” Artem says with an awkward smile. “Our relationship developed pretty quickly. A couple of months later, we flew to Turkey for a vacation and celebrated New Year’s Eve 2022 together. When we returned to Nikopol, everything was moving toward the wedding. But then the war intervened. “In the end, we got married, though later than we’d planned.”
The wedding was in jeopardy: due to his injury, Artem lost the ability to come up with quick, logical solutions. And that, he admits, throws him off track. Whereas before he would spend a few minutes and a couple of phone calls on a problem, now it requires a lot of thought about who to call and what to say.
“I’m very grateful to my friend Nava. At some point, she just took charge of the planning. Because it already seemed to me that it wouldn’t happen—I wasn’t able to decide anything,” Dubyna smiles. “Nava sorted everything out in literally a couple of hours. All we had to do was show up and exchange rings.”
News that made an impact: the blowing up of the Kakhovka dam, FPV drones, the Kursk operation
Captivity is not only imprisonment but also informational isolation. On the “radio”—as they called the device in prison, which played the Russian national anthem, propaganda songs, and the Russian perspective on history—there was no news at all. The prison guards didn’t talk about politics or the war. The only source of “fresh” information was Ukrainian prisoners of war who had been captured later.
“I was surprised that the Kakhovka Reservoir was gone. For a long time, I didn’t believe the news. The city of Nikopol was surrounded on three sides by that reservoir. Throughout my childhood and youth, I used to go to the beach and go fishing there. But now, where the water used to be, there’s a forest. On the other hand, this marks the return of the floodplains that used to exist where the reservoir once stood. Nature reclaimed its territory very quickly. Maybe it’s for the best,” Artem muses. “But this is a crime against the environment and against the people who live downstream and around the reservoir. After all, the towns were simply left without water. This problem had to be solved. And for me, it was a mystery how that could be done.” “It turned out they solved it quickly.”
The widespread use of FPV drones on the front lines came as a revelation to Dubyna on the very day of his release. When they were taken prisoner at Azovstal, this practice wasn’t yet common.
“The guys who were meeting us were talking about something like that, and I was listening but didn’t understand. I said, ‘Hey, stop and explain—what are you talking about?!’—‘Well, drones, unmanned aerial vehicles.’—‘And…?’” And then they realized we didn’t know anything about it at all. They started explaining how they work. It seemed like some kind of war of the future to us, — Artem smiles. — Back when we were fighting, quadcopters could carry VOG-25 grenades at most, or an 82-mm mine. But here, drones are blowing up tanks—they can even blow up an apartment or a house! Now is the best time for gamers to join military units and work with the right joysticks.”
One of the names on the prisoner exchange list was a soldier of ours who had been taken prisoner at the very start of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Kursk Operation. He told the guys about it.
“I couldn’t wrap my head around it: we hadn’t yet recaptured our own territories, yet at the same time we’d crossed the border and seized areas of a nuclear power. This was truly significant news, demonstrating that we are capable of seizing substantial territory and holding onto it. And this was the first incursion into Russian territory since World War II,” Artem Dubyna says enthusiastically.
On faith in justice and sorrow for Mariupol
Callsign Nikopol believes that the Russians will experience firsthand everything that he and our other soldiers went through in captivity. He believes in a civil war in Russia or other socio-political upheavals that will lead to the collapse of the Russian Federation. Perhaps this will happen after Putin’s death.
“For a hypothetical Hague-style trial to take place, Moscow would have to be captured and the top political leadership of the Russian Federation arrested. Right now, this is unlikely to be achieved by Ukrainian forces alone. And the world is in no hurry to get involved in this war,” muses the National Guard officer. “Except for North Korea. But there’s a catch—it’s on the other side. We’re expecting South Korean special forces on our side. Or they might simply cross the 38th parallel and settle everything on the spot.”
Artem would like every Russian to see his city being shelled and destroyed, just as Russian troops destroyed Mariupol or Bakhmut.
“The Drama Theater in Mariupol survived the Nazi occupation and the communist regime, but was destroyed by the defenders of the ‘Russian World,’ even though it housed almost exclusively Russian-speakers, mostly women and children,” Artem Dubyna emphasizes. “At first, the Russians boasted that they had destroyed the ‘Azov’ headquarters there, which had never been in the drama theater. Then they forced our captured artillerymen to take responsibility for destroying the theater, and they forced us to testify that we had supposedly witnessed it. I told them, ‘Do you realize we were already out of ammunition? All our artillery had already been transferred to the infantry by then. And if you understand even a little about the trajectory of shells, you know a shell can’t just fall out of the sky. That’s not how cannons work. The same thing happened earlier with the Mariupol maternity hospital, where the Russians also ‘destroyed the command post.’”
Dubyna admits that he didn’t particularly like Mariupol. Two factories in the city center, with smoke billowing into residential neighborhoods. However, Mariupol had changed a lot over the past few years, even though the war was always nearby. Many cultural centers, creative hubs, shops, and cafes had sprung up in the city, and concerts and festivals were held there.
“It’s a shame about Mariupol. I saw it transform from a gray industrial city into a normal, modern Ukrainian city. And they simply destroyed it. Azovstal no longer exists. The remains were cut up for scrap metal and sold off. I saw graves in the courtyards of high-rises, where neighbors buried their fallen neighbors. Just a small cross and a mound of earth over a shallow grave. People thought it would all be over quickly, and they didn’t leave even as the Russians were simply destroying the city, block by block. I saw people cooking over bonfires in the streets because there was no gas or electricity. I saw how people helped each other survive. I saw civilians looting stores. I saw the market shelled with “Grad” rockets, and a body remained, badly mangled by shrapnel. I think it was a woman. People are walking around, just getting by—and in that moment, a shell flies into an apartment on one of the middle floors of a high-rise, explodes there, sending pieces of furniture flying, and everything starts to burn,” recalls the Azov soldier, thinking back to that spring of 2022 in Mariupol. He still finds it hard to find the words to describe the city that was dying in terrible agony right before his eyes.
“One of my local comrades’ mother died during the siege; she was buried in the yard of a private home, and a few days later, his sister gave birth to a daughter in that same house. Just like in the old days—they heated some water and gathered up some rags. They later left for the mainland, and everything is fine with them now,” Artem shares.
Mariupol fell because the Russians bombarded the city from the air, the sea, and the ground—with missiles, artillery, and everything they had, Dubyna believes. “I think if our infantry had been facing only Russian infantry, we’d still be holding our ground. When they advanced with just infantry, they suffered huge losses. Our guys ‘wore them down.’”
“We’ve finished defending Mariupol, but we haven’t finished defending Ukraine.”
Artem came to his interview at the “Novynarnia” newsroom straight from the dentist—his fillings had “fallen out.” If only that were all. It’s simpler to say that he doesn’t need treatment. He’s already had laser vision correction in Nikopol—his eyesight started to get worse while in captivity. His back, neck, knees, and calves hurt: after sitting for a long time, he can’t walk normally right away.
“They often beat us hard, especially on the Achilles tendon. I’ve already developed pneumonia here; they drained fluid from my right lung. My joints will need treatment,” the Azov soldier continues.
Despite his health condition, Artem leads an active life and participates in campaigns calling for the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war. At one such event, a woman approached him and said she was the mother of “Hryan,” whom Nikopol knew well (Oleksandr Hryanyk was one of those who flew into besieged Mariupol by helicopter and was killed on May 8, 2022, by an enemy aerial bomb).
“It was as if a switch had flipped inside me. Up until then, I’d been forming sentences normally. But there I was, standing there, realizing what I wanted to say to her, but I’d only manage to say two or three words before my mind would go blank; I’d apologize, and the same thing would happen over and over. I thanked her for her son, because her son is extraordinary. As soon as we parted ways, my speech returned. I guess it’s because I valued him so much, and the loss of this person was harder for me than that of anyone else,” says Artem Dubyna.
“There are a few people you remember, and it really turns your insides upside down. I still often think of Molnezar. A young guy—his child was born literally right before the invasion (Second Lieutenant Dmytro Tarityn, a political scientist by training, who died on April 15, 2022, at “Bastion”—one of the Azovstal buildings—”N”). Once, we were at a festival in Mariupol, and he really liked a girl. I told him, “Let’s go over and introduce ourselves.” He listened to me, and that’s how our family was born. I thought of him very often while I was in captivity,” says Artem.
National Guard Captain Dubyna would like to return to duty and keep “moving forward.” Maybe not running through the trenches anymore—because if he runs, his knees will “give out.” In Nikopol, he could write or do some organizational work.
He is convinced: “We have finished defending Mariupol, but we haven’t finished defending Ukraine. My motivation is to see this through so that my children don’t have to live in fear of sirens, but are instead guaranteed lasting peace and a strong defense capability. It’s very important that military service be an honor for Ukrainian citizens. That soldiers be valued and provided for at a level that allows them—even at the risk of losing their lives and health—to continue defending the country.”
“My life has been tied to the army since 2015, so I am determined to continue my service,” says Artem Dubyna, who was released from captivity.
This is an automatic translation generated by DeepL.