“What, you bastards, have you had your fill of Ukrainian soil?!” Through Belarus and Crimea, back to Mykulychi: the story of a civilian tractor driver from the Kyiv region’s captivity
Source: Novynarnia
Author: Stas Kozlyuk
“My name is Oleksandr Kovalchuk, I’m 59 years old, and I’m a tractor driver. On February 24, 2022, I spent the night in my summer kitchen because I had guests from Kyiv. I woke up and heard planes flying overhead. From that day on, they started setting up checkpoints around the village; we were quietly preparing. The occupation began here on March 2. In the morning, I went outside to smoke (I was still smoking back then). I climbed the ladder leading to the attic. At that moment, the village was being shelled from some kind of BMP—it wasn’t a large-caliber weapon. The school was hit, as were a few houses; people’s windows were shattered. At that moment, we realized: the Russians are coming. My cellar was already prepared: there was a battery, a light, stored water, and bedding. I planned for us to wait it out there: me, my wife, my two sons, my retired brother, a few neighbors, a dog, and a cat.”
This is how the extensive interview by “Novynarnia” with Oleksandr Kovalchuk begins—a civilian from the village of Mykulychi in the Bucha District of the Kyiv Region, whom the Russians captured in March 2022, transported to Belarus, from there to Russia, and then to occupied Crimea. In April 2022, Oleksandr, along with other civilian hostages and our prisoners of war, was exchanged for Russian soldiers in the Zaporizhzhia region.
…Almost two and a half years have passed since the de-occupation of the Kyiv region. Back then, in April 2022, the Defense Forces managed to push the Russians back to the border after a month of fierce fighting. However, even this time proved sufficient for the occupiers: from late February to late March, according to the investigation, they committed over 9,000 war crimes and killed 1,700 civilians. Seven hundred of them were killed in Bucha alone.
In addition to looting and killing locals, the Russian invaders took people captive to later exchange them for their own soldiers. For example, in the fall of 2022, Oleksiy Kuleba, head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, reported that the occupiers had taken 147 people from the Kyiv region. A year later, in September 2023, Member of Parliament Olha Vasylevska-Smahliuk—whose team is compiling a list of abducted civilians—stated that this figure is nearly three times higher, amounting to nearly 400 people. But even these figures are not accurate.
As human rights activists from the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR) told “Novynarnia,” new civilian hostages are sometimes discovered by chance. This can happen during prisoner exchanges, when released Ukrainians provide information about their fellow citizens who remain in Russian prisons.
During the month of occupation, the Russians set up an extensive network of torture chambers and prisons in the Kyiv region, where civilian hostages and prisoners of war were “filtered.” According to the International Institute for Human Rights (IIHR) as of March 2024, at least 215 Ukrainians passed through these torture chambers (information regarding dozens of other potential hostages has yet to be verified).
One of the main torture centers was located at the Gostomel airfield, from where people were transported through Belarus to Russia. The co-organizer of this torture chamber may be Russian National Guard officer Sergei Vekkolaainen, who, according to the “Book of Torturers” project, as of spring 2022, held the position of head of the political affairs department of the “Ratibor” unit in the Krasnoyarsk Krai of the Russian Federation.
Oleksandr Kovalchuk was a prisoner in that Hostomel torture chamber.
We met Oleksandr in the spring of 2024, when he was helping to set up a school bomb shelter in the Kyiv region using his tractor. Instead of the planned 40-minute interview, we talked in the summer kitchen for nearly four hours. More precisely, Oleksandr did the talking. He spoke about the Russians’ treatment of civilian hostages, about how he ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp in the Kursk region, how and why he ended up in Crimea, and how the exchange with the Russians took place.
We are publishing Oleksandr’s direct speech with only minor stylistic edits.
Captivity in Hostomel
– …The Russians entered the village from the Warsaw Highway; it was noon. They parked their armored vehicles not far from my house, at the intersection. I climbed out of the cellar and looked—and there were armored vehicles driving by. Ten, fifteen, twenty. Finally, I went outside. I thought I’d make myself some coffee while there was still gas. I had just heated the water when I saw two Russians with automatic rifles standing behind the fence. They had Colorado beetle patches on their helmets. Both were young. And they had a strong Russian accent with a drawn-out “o.”
“Hey, man, can you spare a cigarette?” they asked.
“I don’t have any cigarettes; the stores haven’t been open for a few days,” I replied (here and below, Russian-language dialogues are provided in translation—Ed.).
And I crawled back into the cellar. No sooner had I opened the door than those two started yelling again.
“Stop! They’re already looking for you here!
”
From behind the fence, I see an officer walking toward the house. His assault rifle is slung over his shoulder—so he won’t shoot right away. He approaches me with a very stern stride.
“Well, what’s up, Maidan activist?” he asks.
And immediately hits me in the knee with the butt of his rifle. He takes my phone. And there are all the chat rooms and Telegram channels. We were just discussing photos and videos from Bucha, from Vokzalna Street, where the Russian convoy was destroyed.
“So you’ve spilled the beans, you Nazi. You’re our client!”—and he hits me with the butt of his rifle again.
They tied my hands behind my back and told me not to lift my head. They took me to the center of the village. There was another captive there, Serhiy. I think he and his wife were driving from Borodianka, transporting goods from their store in a pickup truck. And they ran into the Russians.
I look at Serhiy, and he’s lying there, shaking. I tell him, “Don’t be afraid, it won’t get any worse.”
But I’m thinking to myself, “My neighbors must have helped make sure I ended up here.” There was this one guy—he’s fled to Moscow now. He used to call me a “Maidan activist.” He watched a lot of Shariy. I know the Russians came to talk to him before they took me away. And later they asked me if there were any other “Maidan supporters” in the village. But I won’t mention his name because I have no proof. I don’t want to make false accusations.
When they dragged me to the center, soldiers came into my family’s house again. They warned them not to come out of the cellar and said that I had “most likely” been taken prisoner.
As for me and Serhiy, they threw us into some kind of tracked armored vehicle and drove us around. They blindfolded us, threw us on the floor, and sat on top of us, as if on mattresses. And they drove us around like that until nightfall.
Finally, they stopped somewhere in the woods. They tied our legs with rope and secured us to the tracks. The number of prisoners was growing: I saw four territorial defense fighters who’d been ambushed. One of them was wounded—the Russians found drone propellers on him and stabbed him in the buttock with a knife.
It was cold, minus 4. They threw us to the ground, and we lay there like that for a while. Then the Russians covered us with a tarp. Almost immediately it got hot; we couldn’t breathe, and sweat was pouring off us. I tried to free my hands a little and lifted the tarp so I could breathe. I heard the Russians talking among themselves.
– …What should we do if they start bombing from the planes?
– What do you mean? Put on our body armor and gas masks. And if one of these gets tangled up in the tracks—no big deal.
In the morning, they handed us over to another unit that had left the Chernobyl zone, and they started driving us around the region again. They promised to hand us over to some “security officers.” Obviously, they wouldn’t let us eat, drink, or even use the restroom. Eventually, they unloaded us near a technical school in the village of Nemishaieve. I could literally see my house from there!
There was one talkative lieutenant colonel among the Russians.
“Old man, what are you in for?” he asks.
“Well, that’s exactly what I wanted to ask—what for.” “I’m a civilian,” I said.
“Listen. Explain to me—who is Bandera? Everyone’s always going on about Bandera this and Bandera that. Can you tell me?
”
“Well, just Google it.”
– Well, sort of… When I was living in Russia, I didn’t have any thoughts like that. But two months ago, they brought us to the border and took our phones. So I didn’t have a chance to Google it.
Well, I told him the story of our Stepan Andriyovych. That he was a nationalist, that he’d been in a concentration camp, that he stood up for Ukraine. Like, when the Whites came—he beat the s*** out of them. When the Reds came—he beat the s*** out of them too. And the Germans and the Poles, too. That lieutenant colonel listened and said:
– Hey, he seems like a decent guy.
It seemed to me that this lieutenant colonel was one of the doubters, and that I could talk to him. So I asked him to let us use the restroom. The wounded Troshnyk, who was with us, finally received first aid. And I was already starting to think I’d gotten lucky. Because there was my house, just across the river! But then some other Russians arrived in a “Ural.” They looked different—they were in black uniforms. They ordered the soldiers to unload the ammunition. I looked around, and my lieutenant colonel had disappeared somewhere, damn it. They put a hat over my eyes, taped it shut, loaded me into the back of the truck, and took me somewhere into the forest or a wooded area. There, they took me in for interrogation. Even though my eyes were taped shut, I could still catch a glimpse of things along the way. I saw a hole in the ground. And something red next to it. It looked like blood.
“Look. If you don’t say anything useful, we’ll shoot you right here. And right here—we’ll bury you,” explained the Russian who was leading me.
They took the hat off my head. Across from me were four men, with a camera on a tripod. Some of the people around me were dressed in civilian clothes. Maybe they were FSB agents. People in black uniforms started yelling at me.
“On your knees! Talk!” “Where are the Nazis?! Where are the Bandera followers?! Did you see the pit?
”
“What Nazis? What Bandera followers? We’re just ordinary people—I’m a tractor driver…” I didn’t get to finish. I was struck in the head with the butt of a rifle. Blood started flowing right away. But I was lucky: our planes were in the sky. Then a man in civilian clothes dragged me toward the pit they’d been threatening me with the whole time.
“I’m going to shoot at your feet. You’ll fall into the pit and stay still.” Got it?
Of course, I got it. It was a mock execution.
I’m lying in that pit. I hear them leading the next guy in for interrogation—the wounded Troshnyk. Oh, they beat him for a long time. Even I could hear it. They’re bringing him to the pit.
“Pray, you b-bitch!” says the Russian.
“G-g-g-give me a cigarette before I die!” the TrO fighter screams.
I slowly reach out my hand toward him and grab his leg. I’m signaling—as if to say, I’m alive. Meanwhile, the Russian whispered something in his ear. He fired. The TrO soldier fell beside him. I think they wanted to intimidate us. To strip us of whatever shred of dignity might have remained on the second day of captivity. In the end, they “executed” everyone near that pit.
“Get out, f***ers!” the Russians shouted.
They dragged us out. They blindfolded us again and loaded us into a UAZ “Patriot,” or whatever it’s called. I remember it was brand-new, with plastic covers still on the seats. There were now eight of us prisoners: besides me, Serhiy, and the four members of the Territorial Defense Forces, two more people from the Ukrainian Armed Forces had joined us.
While we were driving, we came under Ukrainian artillery fire. We got stuck in some kind of swamp. A Russian tank pulled us out. And that same tank then towed us to Gostomel. Eventually, we ended up at the airfield. They quickly shoved us out of the vehicle, herded us through some turnstiles, and led us into a room where other prisoners were already being held. And they left us there. They measured our weight and height for some reason. And Russians were running around, hauling bags of stolen goods.
“That’s mine! Sign it!” “And this is mine!”—that’s how the Russians were shouting at each other.
At the airfield in Hostomel after the Russian troops retreated. The destroyed An-225 “Mriya” aircraft. April 2022. Illustrative photo
I wanted to ask my family to call and let them know I was alive and being held captive. I even ended up in front of some Russian commander. But he started yelling at me and threatened to beat me up.
On the way, they took us to the bathroom—everything there was already covered in shit: the floor, the walls, the toilets. And right there, I managed to steal a half-liter bottle of water. We shared it among all of us. And for the first time in two days, we were able to lie down properly. At least there was no draft inside.
From the “refrigerators” to Kursk
In the morning, they transferred us to the “refrigerators” (non-functional cold storage rooms in the Gostomel airfield cafeteria—Ed.). They took us outside and forced us to run to another building. Along the way, the Russians beat us as hard as they could. If you tried to lift your head, you’d get hit in the face with a rifle butt. There was a man with us; they tied his hands so tightly with straps that they simply stopped working.
They herded us into one of the refrigerators: a room about three by four meters. The floor was made of corrugated iron. No windows, of course. We needed to use the restroom. So we just went right on the floor. And we lay down to sleep in that same puddle. Well, what can you do? It was good that I had a sheepskin coat that didn’t let moisture through. So we slept on it.
They gave us almost nothing to eat or drink. I remember they brought some kind of shoe box filled with buckwheat porridge. And even that was just a tiny bit. They also gave us a candle and some matches. The door wasn’t closed all the way, so we could hear the Russians talking among themselves.
“So here we are, in Gostomel. And no one’s welcoming us with flowers. What’s next? This is f***ing ridiculous!
”
One day, the Russians came in and told us they were bringing in a particularly dangerous “Azov fighter.” But when they brought the guy in—he was just a kid—they’d captured him in a high-rise building in Gostomel. He’d been sitting in his apartment with two dogs; he hadn’t gone down to the basement. The Russians searched the apartment—they found a little calendar with “Azov” symbols. And they dragged him straight to the airfield.
Andriy and I sat down in a puddle. I told him they’d take him in for questioning now.
“That little calendar is probably going to be my undoing,” he says. And he’s shaking all over.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Just hang in there.” Endure it as best you can.
They brought him back badly beaten. But alive, thank God.
And so they kept us there until March 8. That day, they took everyone out onto the street—about 60 people, maybe a little more; they’d gathered us from all over. They solemnly announced that today was International Women’s Day. They made us kneel. They twisted our arms behind our backs and tied our wrists with straps. Within a few minutes, I felt such pain, as if my hands had been shoved into a fire. And we all started wailing, screaming, and crying. The Russians walked around, smiling.
“Endure it, you animals!” their leader shouted.
I don’t know how long it lasted. Maybe 15 minutes. Honestly—I thought I was going to die right there. Then they cut the ropes with knives. The Russians didn’t hold back much; they even cut some people’s hands.
At that moment, two police vans pulled up and they started loading us in. Two people couldn’t fit.
“Pull those two out and shoot them. That ‘Azov’ guy over there. And that soldier, the wounded one,” I hear the Russians say.
We’re already inside. Andriy, that “Azov” guy, is trembling. I can tell by the look on his face that he understands: it’s over. They pulled him out, along with Troshnyk, who had been stabbed in the buttock. I don’t know what happened to them after that. I didn’t see them get shot. Maybe they’re still alive. I don’t want to take away their families’ hope.
And they took us to the Chernobyl zone, across the road to Ovruch. Then we passed a blue “Chernobyl” sign. They didn’t blindfold me very tightly, so I could peek a little. I saw three-story brick buildings. They were taking us toward Gomel, in Belarus. We stopped before reaching the city. I guess the Russians didn’t want any civilians to see us there. Some drunk old man was walking by. And he started yelling:
– What, Russians, did you attack Ukraine?
– You damn Ukrainians! – the Russian soldiers shouted.
– Are you f***ing crazy?! Who do you even listen to? Our mustachioed cockroach?!
And they kept arguing like that for about 15 minutes. I thought that old man was done for. But they didn’t touch him.
When it started to get dark, they drove us into the city. At the entrance, I remember seeing a sign that said “Soviet District.” Then there was the “Solnechnaya” bus stop, then “Shkola.” After that, we made a few turns and ended up near the detention center. We stood there for about two hours and then drove back to Chernobyl. It was only later that I found out they had refused to admit us because the detention center was packed with Ukrainians: there were definitely people from Makarov, mostly from the Kyiv region.
I think they took us somewhere near the nuclear power plant. Because I saw a power unit. And they kept us there until four or five in the morning. They woke us up and gave us a one-liter bottle of water for 30 people. They wouldn’t let us use the restroom. And they generally wouldn’t let us get out of the police van—they were afraid. So we had to relieve ourselves on the floor.
Eventually, they took us to the airport. I’m sure of this because I saw the sign that said “Gomel Airport.” They brought an Il-76, and we were loaded onto it. And we flew to Russia.
First to Glushkovo. It’s a village in the Kursk region; on the outskirts there are abandoned farms where the Russians set up a tent camp for prisoners. I think there were 25 tents. Even their propagandists filmed segments about it: they said, look how civilized the Russians are—they set up tents for the prisoners, with beds and new stoves.
At that camp, they made us kneel in the snow. It was very cold. They said it was, I think, minus 15 degrees. Both the military and civilians there looked at us as if we were animals in a zoo. We were the first prisoners they’d ever seen. They stripped us, searched us, and took our belongings and cigarettes. Then they put 14 people in each of those tents.
They fueled the stoves with chopped-up ammunition boxes. That was on March 9.
Overall, the situation at the camp seemed better because they fed us there. But the food was incredibly hot, as if on purpose. Then you’d sit in the tent and peel the burnt skin off the inside of your mouth. After all, the guards didn’t give us much time to eat—just a few minutes.
So I just dumped all my food onto one plate: soup, the main course, and tea. I ate whatever I could manage.
And I stuffed bread into my pockets.
There was a Russian guy at the food line, Asian-looking. He looked scared all the time. Maybe they’d told him we were some kind of scary Bandera supporters. So I made my face look even scarier so I could scoop up more bread into my coat.
It was hardest for the man with disabled hands. We asked the guards to give us more time to feed him. His hands didn’t work! But if we lingered, they’d start beating us with rifle butts and chase us out into the yard. Back in our tent, we toasted bread on the potbelly stove.
But what we wanted most was something to drink. They gave us very little water.
The tents were surrounded by barbed wire along the perimeter, with guards carrying automatic rifles. Just like in a concentration camp. But we could sneak out of the tent unnoticed, gather some snow, and melt it in the iron ash pan from the potbelly stove. So we washed it out and used it to melt the snow. And that’s how we stayed hydrated.
On March 13, a police van arrived at our camp. They put all the soldiers we’d flown in with from Gostomel into it. We didn’t know what would happen to them next. We hoped they were being taken for an exchange.
On March 14, the police vans came for us. We were sitting in the van when the escort said:
“Well, it’ll be easier in prison. There’s already a meal ration, a toilet, a sink, and water. They’ll feed you better.” The main thing is not to screw up. Otherwise, you’re screwed.
And so we arrived at Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Kursk.
The Kursk Pretrial Detention Center and guests from the occupied Donbas
They took us to the “reception area”—the place where they admit prisoners. There, they took my sheepskin coat, which the Russians stubbornly called a “tulupchik.” Then they took us for medical tests and checks. They literally looked right up your ass.
They beat us constantly. For example, in the shower. You undress, they lead you into the shower, turn on scalding hot water, then cold water. The moment you lather up—a guard runs up and kicks you in the legs. You fall. He climbs on your back and pulls a plastic bag over your head.
“Take a picture of us riding these pigs!” he yells.
And you can’t even breathe, for f***’s sake. You barely manage to get up. They beat you again. This time with some kind of board that has a special handle. Then with boxing gloves. Then with stun guns. It was really scary. Then they shave your head. But the way they do it—those clippers literally rip the hair right out of your head. Finally, they give you a prison uniform and take you to the Lenin Room. And there they have the Battle of Kursk, a whole mural.
“So, do you know anything about the Battle of Kursk?” the guards ask.
And what are you going to tell them? They line you up against the wall, “spread-eagled.” They kick you. You fall. Your teeth hit the floor.
The beatings went on for a long time. It wasn’t until nighttime that they took us to a cell. And in the morning, I saw that I was with the guys I’d been with in Glushkovo, at the prisoner-of-war camp.
Those who looked better were taken to be filmed for video interviews. You had to say that you got three meals a day, that they let you sleep, that there were hygiene supplies, and that everything was fine. You couldn’t complain. Because then they’d start beating you. That’s how the prison guards protected themselves.
Overall, it’s a very old building—I think it dates back to the 1800s. It’s constantly damp, with a rotten smell. If you happened to scratch your skin, the wound would start to fester. Your feet could swell to unbelievable sizes. But at the same time, the guards forced us to say that prisoners were treated well here and that, in general, the Geneva Conventions were respected.
They fed us. They gave one loaf of bread for every five people. There were also potatoes. But they were… well, in our village, we don’t even feed that to the pigs. But it was better than before.
We kept track of time by the sun: we had a striped blanket. And by the way the sunlight fell on those stripes, we knew whether it was morning, noon, or evening.
Interrogations took place almost every day. They asked almost the same questions as in Gostomel. But, as I understood it, the prosecutor at the pretrial detention center wasn’t quite sure whether we were civilians or military personnel. And you had to answer in a way that would prevent them from beating you too badly. If you showed that you were afraid, they would start tormenting you even more.
They forced us to learn Russian songs and the Russian national anthem. When the anthem came on the internal radio, you had to stand up and start singing. And the guards would walk around the cells, checking who was singing and who wasn’t. If you refused to do it, they’d come at night. They told me I was a “subversive.” They forced us to sing their f***ing songs, like: “Uncle Vova, We’re With You,” “Victory Day, How Far Away It Was From Us,” and “When Katyusha Came Ashore.”
And while all this was going on, I thought: so be it. I’ll die, and I’ll die. I’ve lived my life. But there are young guys out there. Both in the camp and in Hostomel. Some of them were even taken prisoner on February 25. They don’t know anything. Neither about the “Ghost of Kyiv” nor about how we crushed the Russians. They wanted “Kyiv in three days,” but we kicked their asses. Both near Kyiv and near Chernihiv.
We agreed among ourselves: if anyone gets out sooner, they’re supposed to pass on the message to our families that we’re alive and we’re in captivity. We memorized each other’s first and last names.
And now they’re taking me in for yet another interrogation. There, they tell me that Ukraine is finished. That Zelenskyy is hiding somewhere in a cellar in Poland, and Biden won’t let him sign a peace agreement. And then they say, “Go.” And I go. Alone. Through that Lenin-themed room. I walk into my cell—and there’s a new guy sitting there. A slightly stocky young man. When those animals took him into the detention center, they beat him so badly that the skin on his buttocks cracked and was bleeding. And his whole body was covered in bruises.
Then the guards come in behind me. At that moment, you have to give a report: state your full name, year of birth, say how many people are in the cell, and confirm that nothing has happened. God forbid you say a word in Ukrainian. One of us did that, and they beat him up for it. After that, we decided that only I would give the report. Since I’m already old, maybe they won’t beat me as hard.
So, I’m giving the report. And the guard yells, “Shut the f*** up! Get out!”
And I’m already thinking, maybe this new guy told them something about me. They told me again: “Get your things and get out!” And that could mean either release or a transfer to another cell. I left my things near the cell, then they took me to a room where there were bags of civilian clothes. They gave me one of the bags. Then—the smoking room. There was another man sitting there; he was about 70 years old. He’d worked as a security guard in Gostomel. And there was also that man whose hands didn’t work. We changed into our civilian clothes and talked among ourselves about the exchange—whether it would happen or not. I ended up with some women’s clothes—a smaller size—but it didn’t matter.
And then they brought six people into the smoking room. From Tula. They looked so neat—shaved and with neat haircuts. And there we were, unkempt, looking like homeless people. These six tell us they had cigarettes, apples, and went for walks. A resort. And one of the prisoners says to me, “Uncle Sasha, but these guys are from the ‘DPR.’” And I can’t believe that the Russians shoved their own people in here with us.
They put us in police vans. Whereas before they’d haul us around like canned fish, this time I was riding alone. They brought us to the airfield. My mind is already in Belarus. I can already see myself returning home. And then I hear that we’re heading back because someone refused the exchange.
“Who the f*** refused the exchange?! Are you f***ing assholes?! – I couldn’t take it anymore and started yelling out the window.
We stood there for two hours and then drove back. I thought: We had this chance—how could this happen! They took us back to the reception area again. The guards were really happy about that.
But they didn’t touch us this time. Only the guys from Tula. And the guards are crafty: first, they filmed all of us to show we weren’t beaten up. Because whether Russia wins or loses the war, the prison guards are always thinking about how they’ll be judged later, and they need to cover their own asses. They handed out bags for us to put our clothes in and gave us prison uniforms again. And we were sitting in the smoking room again. Finally, they brought in those guys from the “DPR.” Their hair was already shaved, just like ours. And they’d been beaten—they were all bruised. Some had even started slurring their words. They were beaten with sticks and stun guns, and they were singing songs. The whole routine.
They put everyone in cells for the night, and at five in the morning they roused us again and dragged us to the smoking room. While we were looking for our labeled bags, the guards beat us, but by then we didn’t care anymore.
We’re sitting there, talking to those “DNR guys.” And it turns out that they were the ones who refused the exchange. Because they were told that the Ukrainian military would shoot them in the knees. What a bunch of f***ers to believe that, honestly.
They led us out into the courtyard. And there, those “DNR guys” started talking shit again. Then they gathered us in a circle and said: “We’ll take you (‘DNR guys’) to Rostov; we won’t hand you over to the Ukrainians. From there, you’ll go home. But remember our kindness. Tell everyone you meet what happened to you. And for those who get captured—it’ll be even worse. Tell them they need to go to the military registration and enlistment office, get a uniform, and help the valiant Russian army f*** the Ukrainians.” And again, they keep beating these “DNR” guys.
I notice our pretrial detention center prosecutor sitting on a small stool around the corner of the building. And that’s when I realize he’s the one who orchestrated all of this—the threats about shooting our knees, the refusal to exchange us, and the beatings. I think they beat them like that on purpose so they’d tell others and go off to fight out of fear.
Finally, they shoved us into a police van; this time they didn’t blindfold us, they just covered our eyes with hats. And at the airfield, they put us on a plane.
The Journey Home
We made our first stop somewhere in Rostov because they had to unload the prisoners from the “DPR.” They replaced them with other prisoners from the Zaporizhzhia region—from some government offices, as they themselves said. Then we flew for a long time, landed at some airfield, and were loaded onto a covered KamAZ truck. We were traveling like human beings now: we weren’t lying on the floor, but sitting on benches. I peeked through the tarp—there were some mountains all around. I thought: There definitely aren’t any mountains in Belarus. Could the Russians have made it all the way to the Carpathians? How could that be?
It turned out they were taking us to Sevastopol, to the naval academy. There, they made us undress again and searched us. And they told us we were in “barracks conditions.” That is, we could move around the grounds, there were showers, and normal beds. Just your average barracks. And cigarettes. Because in the detention center, we’d been smoking tree bark.
There were also some other guys with us—soldiers. I didn’t have time to get to know them because they were taken away quickly. There was a TV on which Gazmanov was singing. I saw some acquaintances with whom I’d been captured. There was also a woman from Mariupol who was telling someone on camera that she hated Ukraine and didn’t want to be part of a prisoner exchange.
The next day, they woke us up at five in the morning and put us back in the truck. I started arguing with that woman who didn’t want to be exchanged.
“Do you know what happened in Mariupol?” she asked me.
“No,” I said. “But I heard you gave the Russians a piece of your mind yesterday!
”
Then they told me that Mariupol no longer exists. The Russians destroyed it.
As we approached Chongar, I saw that everything was in ruins. There are burned-out cars, tanks, and houses. We’re driving in a convoy of military vehicles. There’s some artillery with us, some armored vehicles. When we left Crimea, they transferred us to another vehicle. Our guards there were either Chechens or Dagestanis. They kept their faces hidden from us the whole time so we wouldn’t see them.
They brought us to a destroyed bridge. They took the blindfolds off our eyes. They untied our hands. Two officers in white helmets approached us and said they needed stretchers. Because on the other side, there were wounded soldiers who couldn’t walk.
And so we walked across the blown-up bridge. We were going one way—while the Russians were being carried in the other.
I couldn’t take it anymore and shouted, “What, you bastards, have you had your fill of Ukrainian soil?!”
The other guys started yelling at me, but the colonel who had picked us up said, “That’s exactly right.”
And then, along the way, they start telling us the news: Kyiv Oblast—liberated. Chernihiv Oblast—liberated. Sumy Oblast—liberated. The Russians have been pushed back from Kharkiv.
We sang the national anthem. Sincerely, from the heart. I wanted to fall to my knees and just kiss that ground. I’m a tough guy, but that made me start crying.
Then there was a comfortable bus that took us to Zaporizhzhia.
The first thing I did was go and shave right away. So I wouldn’t have to go home looking like that. I woke up in the morning and met with Iryna Vereshchuk. Maybe she really isn’t quite right, but to me she’s a good person. Because she came to meet us and talked with us.
I step out onto the street and see a bus heading to Pushcha-Vodytsia. I want to go home, but they tell me, “You can’t! You have to go through rehabilitation!”
“I’ll rehabilitate whoever you want myself,” I thought to myself. And I took that bus home.
My family had already been called by then; they were told I was alive. The head of the local community even came to our house to let us know. Because the Russians had stolen our phones. But one of the guys sitting with me had managed to hide his phone. So I memorized his number. And then I dictated it when I was released from captivity.
Eventually, I found myself back home in Mykulychi.
I was held captive for 44 days: from March 2 to April 16.
Most of the guys who were captured by the Russians with us have already been released. The man who had problems with his hands is also from the Kyiv region. He’s currently undergoing rehabilitation. A wounded Territorial Defense soldier, whom the Russians pulled out of a police van on March 8, was reportedly seen in one of the hospitals for prisoners of war in Kursk. I still hope he’s alive and will be able to return home.
As for me… I’m working as a tractor operator again. Right now, I’m helping set up shelters in schools.
This project is being implemented with financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic as part of the Transition Promotion Program.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.
Author: Stas Kozlyuk
“My name is Oleksandr Kovalchuk, I’m 59 years old, and I’m a tractor driver. On February 24, 2022, I spent the night in my summer kitchen because I had guests from Kyiv. I woke up and heard planes flying overhead. From that day on, they started setting up checkpoints around the village; we were quietly preparing. The occupation began here on March 2. In the morning, I went outside to smoke (I was still smoking back then). I climbed the ladder leading to the attic. At that moment, the village was being shelled from some kind of BMP—it wasn’t a large-caliber weapon. The school was hit, as were a few houses; people’s windows were shattered. At that moment, we realized: the Russians are coming. My cellar was already prepared: there was a battery, a light, stored water, and bedding. I planned for us to wait it out there: me, my wife, my two sons, my retired brother, a few neighbors, a dog, and a cat.”
This is how the extensive interview by “Novynarnia” with Oleksandr Kovalchuk begins—a civilian from the village of Mykulychi in the Bucha District of the Kyiv Region, whom the Russians captured in March 2022, transported to Belarus, from there to Russia, and then to occupied Crimea. In April 2022, Oleksandr, along with other civilian hostages and our prisoners of war, was exchanged for Russian soldiers in the Zaporizhzhia region.
…Almost two and a half years have passed since the de-occupation of the Kyiv region. Back then, in April 2022, the Defense Forces managed to push the Russians back to the border after a month of fierce fighting. However, even this time proved sufficient for the occupiers: from late February to late March, according to the investigation, they committed over 9,000 war crimes and killed 1,700 civilians. Seven hundred of them were killed in Bucha alone.
In addition to looting and killing locals, the Russian invaders took people captive to later exchange them for their own soldiers. For example, in the fall of 2022, Oleksiy Kuleba, head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, reported that the occupiers had taken 147 people from the Kyiv region. A year later, in September 2023, Member of Parliament Olha Vasylevska-Smahliuk—whose team is compiling a list of abducted civilians—stated that this figure is nearly three times higher, amounting to nearly 400 people. But even these figures are not accurate.
As human rights activists from the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR) told “Novynarnia,” new civilian hostages are sometimes discovered by chance. This can happen during prisoner exchanges, when released Ukrainians provide information about their fellow citizens who remain in Russian prisons.
During the month of occupation, the Russians set up an extensive network of torture chambers and prisons in the Kyiv region, where civilian hostages and prisoners of war were “filtered.” According to the International Institute for Human Rights (IIHR) as of March 2024, at least 215 Ukrainians passed through these torture chambers (information regarding dozens of other potential hostages has yet to be verified).
One of the main torture centers was located at the Gostomel airfield, from where people were transported through Belarus to Russia. The co-organizer of this torture chamber may be Russian National Guard officer Sergei Vekkolaainen, who, according to the “Book of Torturers” project, as of spring 2022, held the position of head of the political affairs department of the “Ratibor” unit in the Krasnoyarsk Krai of the Russian Federation.
Oleksandr Kovalchuk was a prisoner in that Hostomel torture chamber.
We met Oleksandr in the spring of 2024, when he was helping to set up a school bomb shelter in the Kyiv region using his tractor. Instead of the planned 40-minute interview, we talked in the summer kitchen for nearly four hours. More precisely, Oleksandr did the talking. He spoke about the Russians’ treatment of civilian hostages, about how he ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp in the Kursk region, how and why he ended up in Crimea, and how the exchange with the Russians took place.
We are publishing Oleksandr’s direct speech with only minor stylistic edits.
Captivity in Hostomel
– …The Russians entered the village from the Warsaw Highway; it was noon. They parked their armored vehicles not far from my house, at the intersection. I climbed out of the cellar and looked—and there were armored vehicles driving by. Ten, fifteen, twenty. Finally, I went outside. I thought I’d make myself some coffee while there was still gas. I had just heated the water when I saw two Russians with automatic rifles standing behind the fence. They had Colorado beetle patches on their helmets. Both were young. And they had a strong Russian accent with a drawn-out “o.”
“Hey, man, can you spare a cigarette?” they asked.
“I don’t have any cigarettes; the stores haven’t been open for a few days,” I replied (here and below, Russian-language dialogues are provided in translation—Ed.).
And I crawled back into the cellar. No sooner had I opened the door than those two started yelling again.
“Stop! They’re already looking for you here!
”
From behind the fence, I see an officer walking toward the house. His assault rifle is slung over his shoulder—so he won’t shoot right away. He approaches me with a very stern stride.
“Well, what’s up, Maidan activist?” he asks.
And immediately hits me in the knee with the butt of his rifle. He takes my phone. And there are all the chat rooms and Telegram channels. We were just discussing photos and videos from Bucha, from Vokzalna Street, where the Russian convoy was destroyed.
“So you’ve spilled the beans, you Nazi. You’re our client!”—and he hits me with the butt of his rifle again.
They tied my hands behind my back and told me not to lift my head. They took me to the center of the village. There was another captive there, Serhiy. I think he and his wife were driving from Borodianka, transporting goods from their store in a pickup truck. And they ran into the Russians.
I look at Serhiy, and he’s lying there, shaking. I tell him, “Don’t be afraid, it won’t get any worse.”
But I’m thinking to myself, “My neighbors must have helped make sure I ended up here.” There was this one guy—he’s fled to Moscow now. He used to call me a “Maidan activist.” He watched a lot of Shariy. I know the Russians came to talk to him before they took me away. And later they asked me if there were any other “Maidan supporters” in the village. But I won’t mention his name because I have no proof. I don’t want to make false accusations.
When they dragged me to the center, soldiers came into my family’s house again. They warned them not to come out of the cellar and said that I had “most likely” been taken prisoner.
As for me and Serhiy, they threw us into some kind of tracked armored vehicle and drove us around. They blindfolded us, threw us on the floor, and sat on top of us, as if on mattresses. And they drove us around like that until nightfall.
Finally, they stopped somewhere in the woods. They tied our legs with rope and secured us to the tracks. The number of prisoners was growing: I saw four territorial defense fighters who’d been ambushed. One of them was wounded—the Russians found drone propellers on him and stabbed him in the buttock with a knife.
It was cold, minus 4. They threw us to the ground, and we lay there like that for a while. Then the Russians covered us with a tarp. Almost immediately it got hot; we couldn’t breathe, and sweat was pouring off us. I tried to free my hands a little and lifted the tarp so I could breathe. I heard the Russians talking among themselves.
– …What should we do if they start bombing from the planes?
– What do you mean? Put on our body armor and gas masks. And if one of these gets tangled up in the tracks—no big deal.
In the morning, they handed us over to another unit that had left the Chernobyl zone, and they started driving us around the region again. They promised to hand us over to some “security officers.” Obviously, they wouldn’t let us eat, drink, or even use the restroom. Eventually, they unloaded us near a technical school in the village of Nemishaieve. I could literally see my house from there!
There was one talkative lieutenant colonel among the Russians.
“Old man, what are you in for?” he asks.
“Well, that’s exactly what I wanted to ask—what for.” “I’m a civilian,” I said.
“Listen. Explain to me—who is Bandera? Everyone’s always going on about Bandera this and Bandera that. Can you tell me?
”
“Well, just Google it.”
– Well, sort of… When I was living in Russia, I didn’t have any thoughts like that. But two months ago, they brought us to the border and took our phones. So I didn’t have a chance to Google it.
Well, I told him the story of our Stepan Andriyovych. That he was a nationalist, that he’d been in a concentration camp, that he stood up for Ukraine. Like, when the Whites came—he beat the s*** out of them. When the Reds came—he beat the s*** out of them too. And the Germans and the Poles, too. That lieutenant colonel listened and said:
– Hey, he seems like a decent guy.
It seemed to me that this lieutenant colonel was one of the doubters, and that I could talk to him. So I asked him to let us use the restroom. The wounded Troshnyk, who was with us, finally received first aid. And I was already starting to think I’d gotten lucky. Because there was my house, just across the river! But then some other Russians arrived in a “Ural.” They looked different—they were in black uniforms. They ordered the soldiers to unload the ammunition. I looked around, and my lieutenant colonel had disappeared somewhere, damn it. They put a hat over my eyes, taped it shut, loaded me into the back of the truck, and took me somewhere into the forest or a wooded area. There, they took me in for interrogation. Even though my eyes were taped shut, I could still catch a glimpse of things along the way. I saw a hole in the ground. And something red next to it. It looked like blood.
“Look. If you don’t say anything useful, we’ll shoot you right here. And right here—we’ll bury you,” explained the Russian who was leading me.
They took the hat off my head. Across from me were four men, with a camera on a tripod. Some of the people around me were dressed in civilian clothes. Maybe they were FSB agents. People in black uniforms started yelling at me.
“On your knees! Talk!” “Where are the Nazis?! Where are the Bandera followers?! Did you see the pit?
”
“What Nazis? What Bandera followers? We’re just ordinary people—I’m a tractor driver…” I didn’t get to finish. I was struck in the head with the butt of a rifle. Blood started flowing right away. But I was lucky: our planes were in the sky. Then a man in civilian clothes dragged me toward the pit they’d been threatening me with the whole time.
“I’m going to shoot at your feet. You’ll fall into the pit and stay still.” Got it?
Of course, I got it. It was a mock execution.
I’m lying in that pit. I hear them leading the next guy in for interrogation—the wounded Troshnyk. Oh, they beat him for a long time. Even I could hear it. They’re bringing him to the pit.
“Pray, you b-bitch!” says the Russian.
“G-g-g-give me a cigarette before I die!” the TrO fighter screams.
I slowly reach out my hand toward him and grab his leg. I’m signaling—as if to say, I’m alive. Meanwhile, the Russian whispered something in his ear. He fired. The TrO soldier fell beside him. I think they wanted to intimidate us. To strip us of whatever shred of dignity might have remained on the second day of captivity. In the end, they “executed” everyone near that pit.
“Get out, f***ers!” the Russians shouted.
They dragged us out. They blindfolded us again and loaded us into a UAZ “Patriot,” or whatever it’s called. I remember it was brand-new, with plastic covers still on the seats. There were now eight of us prisoners: besides me, Serhiy, and the four members of the Territorial Defense Forces, two more people from the Ukrainian Armed Forces had joined us.
While we were driving, we came under Ukrainian artillery fire. We got stuck in some kind of swamp. A Russian tank pulled us out. And that same tank then towed us to Gostomel. Eventually, we ended up at the airfield. They quickly shoved us out of the vehicle, herded us through some turnstiles, and led us into a room where other prisoners were already being held. And they left us there. They measured our weight and height for some reason. And Russians were running around, hauling bags of stolen goods.
“That’s mine! Sign it!” “And this is mine!”—that’s how the Russians were shouting at each other.
At the airfield in Hostomel after the Russian troops retreated. The destroyed An-225 “Mriya” aircraft. April 2022. Illustrative photo
I wanted to ask my family to call and let them know I was alive and being held captive. I even ended up in front of some Russian commander. But he started yelling at me and threatened to beat me up.
On the way, they took us to the bathroom—everything there was already covered in shit: the floor, the walls, the toilets. And right there, I managed to steal a half-liter bottle of water. We shared it among all of us. And for the first time in two days, we were able to lie down properly. At least there was no draft inside.
From the “refrigerators” to Kursk
In the morning, they transferred us to the “refrigerators” (non-functional cold storage rooms in the Gostomel airfield cafeteria—Ed.). They took us outside and forced us to run to another building. Along the way, the Russians beat us as hard as they could. If you tried to lift your head, you’d get hit in the face with a rifle butt. There was a man with us; they tied his hands so tightly with straps that they simply stopped working.
They herded us into one of the refrigerators: a room about three by four meters. The floor was made of corrugated iron. No windows, of course. We needed to use the restroom. So we just went right on the floor. And we lay down to sleep in that same puddle. Well, what can you do? It was good that I had a sheepskin coat that didn’t let moisture through. So we slept on it.
They gave us almost nothing to eat or drink. I remember they brought some kind of shoe box filled with buckwheat porridge. And even that was just a tiny bit. They also gave us a candle and some matches. The door wasn’t closed all the way, so we could hear the Russians talking among themselves.
“So here we are, in Gostomel. And no one’s welcoming us with flowers. What’s next? This is f***ing ridiculous!
”
One day, the Russians came in and told us they were bringing in a particularly dangerous “Azov fighter.” But when they brought the guy in—he was just a kid—they’d captured him in a high-rise building in Gostomel. He’d been sitting in his apartment with two dogs; he hadn’t gone down to the basement. The Russians searched the apartment—they found a little calendar with “Azov” symbols. And they dragged him straight to the airfield.
Andriy and I sat down in a puddle. I told him they’d take him in for questioning now.
“That little calendar is probably going to be my undoing,” he says. And he’s shaking all over.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Just hang in there.” Endure it as best you can.
They brought him back badly beaten. But alive, thank God.
And so they kept us there until March 8. That day, they took everyone out onto the street—about 60 people, maybe a little more; they’d gathered us from all over. They solemnly announced that today was International Women’s Day. They made us kneel. They twisted our arms behind our backs and tied our wrists with straps. Within a few minutes, I felt such pain, as if my hands had been shoved into a fire. And we all started wailing, screaming, and crying. The Russians walked around, smiling.
“Endure it, you animals!” their leader shouted.
I don’t know how long it lasted. Maybe 15 minutes. Honestly—I thought I was going to die right there. Then they cut the ropes with knives. The Russians didn’t hold back much; they even cut some people’s hands.
At that moment, two police vans pulled up and they started loading us in. Two people couldn’t fit.
“Pull those two out and shoot them. That ‘Azov’ guy over there. And that soldier, the wounded one,” I hear the Russians say.
We’re already inside. Andriy, that “Azov” guy, is trembling. I can tell by the look on his face that he understands: it’s over. They pulled him out, along with Troshnyk, who had been stabbed in the buttock. I don’t know what happened to them after that. I didn’t see them get shot. Maybe they’re still alive. I don’t want to take away their families’ hope.
And they took us to the Chernobyl zone, across the road to Ovruch. Then we passed a blue “Chernobyl” sign. They didn’t blindfold me very tightly, so I could peek a little. I saw three-story brick buildings. They were taking us toward Gomel, in Belarus. We stopped before reaching the city. I guess the Russians didn’t want any civilians to see us there. Some drunk old man was walking by. And he started yelling:
– What, Russians, did you attack Ukraine?
– You damn Ukrainians! – the Russian soldiers shouted.
– Are you f***ing crazy?! Who do you even listen to? Our mustachioed cockroach?!
And they kept arguing like that for about 15 minutes. I thought that old man was done for. But they didn’t touch him.
When it started to get dark, they drove us into the city. At the entrance, I remember seeing a sign that said “Soviet District.” Then there was the “Solnechnaya” bus stop, then “Shkola.” After that, we made a few turns and ended up near the detention center. We stood there for about two hours and then drove back to Chernobyl. It was only later that I found out they had refused to admit us because the detention center was packed with Ukrainians: there were definitely people from Makarov, mostly from the Kyiv region.
I think they took us somewhere near the nuclear power plant. Because I saw a power unit. And they kept us there until four or five in the morning. They woke us up and gave us a one-liter bottle of water for 30 people. They wouldn’t let us use the restroom. And they generally wouldn’t let us get out of the police van—they were afraid. So we had to relieve ourselves on the floor.
Eventually, they took us to the airport. I’m sure of this because I saw the sign that said “Gomel Airport.” They brought an Il-76, and we were loaded onto it. And we flew to Russia.
First to Glushkovo. It’s a village in the Kursk region; on the outskirts there are abandoned farms where the Russians set up a tent camp for prisoners. I think there were 25 tents. Even their propagandists filmed segments about it: they said, look how civilized the Russians are—they set up tents for the prisoners, with beds and new stoves.
At that camp, they made us kneel in the snow. It was very cold. They said it was, I think, minus 15 degrees. Both the military and civilians there looked at us as if we were animals in a zoo. We were the first prisoners they’d ever seen. They stripped us, searched us, and took our belongings and cigarettes. Then they put 14 people in each of those tents.
They fueled the stoves with chopped-up ammunition boxes. That was on March 9.
Overall, the situation at the camp seemed better because they fed us there. But the food was incredibly hot, as if on purpose. Then you’d sit in the tent and peel the burnt skin off the inside of your mouth. After all, the guards didn’t give us much time to eat—just a few minutes.
So I just dumped all my food onto one plate: soup, the main course, and tea. I ate whatever I could manage.
And I stuffed bread into my pockets.
There was a Russian guy at the food line, Asian-looking. He looked scared all the time. Maybe they’d told him we were some kind of scary Bandera supporters. So I made my face look even scarier so I could scoop up more bread into my coat.
It was hardest for the man with disabled hands. We asked the guards to give us more time to feed him. His hands didn’t work! But if we lingered, they’d start beating us with rifle butts and chase us out into the yard. Back in our tent, we toasted bread on the potbelly stove.
But what we wanted most was something to drink. They gave us very little water.
The tents were surrounded by barbed wire along the perimeter, with guards carrying automatic rifles. Just like in a concentration camp. But we could sneak out of the tent unnoticed, gather some snow, and melt it in the iron ash pan from the potbelly stove. So we washed it out and used it to melt the snow. And that’s how we stayed hydrated.
On March 13, a police van arrived at our camp. They put all the soldiers we’d flown in with from Gostomel into it. We didn’t know what would happen to them next. We hoped they were being taken for an exchange.
On March 14, the police vans came for us. We were sitting in the van when the escort said:
“Well, it’ll be easier in prison. There’s already a meal ration, a toilet, a sink, and water. They’ll feed you better.” The main thing is not to screw up. Otherwise, you’re screwed.
And so we arrived at Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Kursk.
The Kursk Pretrial Detention Center and guests from the occupied Donbas
They took us to the “reception area”—the place where they admit prisoners. There, they took my sheepskin coat, which the Russians stubbornly called a “tulupchik.” Then they took us for medical tests and checks. They literally looked right up your ass.
They beat us constantly. For example, in the shower. You undress, they lead you into the shower, turn on scalding hot water, then cold water. The moment you lather up—a guard runs up and kicks you in the legs. You fall. He climbs on your back and pulls a plastic bag over your head.
“Take a picture of us riding these pigs!” he yells.
And you can’t even breathe, for f***’s sake. You barely manage to get up. They beat you again. This time with some kind of board that has a special handle. Then with boxing gloves. Then with stun guns. It was really scary. Then they shave your head. But the way they do it—those clippers literally rip the hair right out of your head. Finally, they give you a prison uniform and take you to the Lenin Room. And there they have the Battle of Kursk, a whole mural.
“So, do you know anything about the Battle of Kursk?” the guards ask.
And what are you going to tell them? They line you up against the wall, “spread-eagled.” They kick you. You fall. Your teeth hit the floor.
The beatings went on for a long time. It wasn’t until nighttime that they took us to a cell. And in the morning, I saw that I was with the guys I’d been with in Glushkovo, at the prisoner-of-war camp.
Those who looked better were taken to be filmed for video interviews. You had to say that you got three meals a day, that they let you sleep, that there were hygiene supplies, and that everything was fine. You couldn’t complain. Because then they’d start beating you. That’s how the prison guards protected themselves.
Overall, it’s a very old building—I think it dates back to the 1800s. It’s constantly damp, with a rotten smell. If you happened to scratch your skin, the wound would start to fester. Your feet could swell to unbelievable sizes. But at the same time, the guards forced us to say that prisoners were treated well here and that, in general, the Geneva Conventions were respected.
They fed us. They gave one loaf of bread for every five people. There were also potatoes. But they were… well, in our village, we don’t even feed that to the pigs. But it was better than before.
We kept track of time by the sun: we had a striped blanket. And by the way the sunlight fell on those stripes, we knew whether it was morning, noon, or evening.
Interrogations took place almost every day. They asked almost the same questions as in Gostomel. But, as I understood it, the prosecutor at the pretrial detention center wasn’t quite sure whether we were civilians or military personnel. And you had to answer in a way that would prevent them from beating you too badly. If you showed that you were afraid, they would start tormenting you even more.
They forced us to learn Russian songs and the Russian national anthem. When the anthem came on the internal radio, you had to stand up and start singing. And the guards would walk around the cells, checking who was singing and who wasn’t. If you refused to do it, they’d come at night. They told me I was a “subversive.” They forced us to sing their f***ing songs, like: “Uncle Vova, We’re With You,” “Victory Day, How Far Away It Was From Us,” and “When Katyusha Came Ashore.”
And while all this was going on, I thought: so be it. I’ll die, and I’ll die. I’ve lived my life. But there are young guys out there. Both in the camp and in Hostomel. Some of them were even taken prisoner on February 25. They don’t know anything. Neither about the “Ghost of Kyiv” nor about how we crushed the Russians. They wanted “Kyiv in three days,” but we kicked their asses. Both near Kyiv and near Chernihiv.
We agreed among ourselves: if anyone gets out sooner, they’re supposed to pass on the message to our families that we’re alive and we’re in captivity. We memorized each other’s first and last names.
And now they’re taking me in for yet another interrogation. There, they tell me that Ukraine is finished. That Zelenskyy is hiding somewhere in a cellar in Poland, and Biden won’t let him sign a peace agreement. And then they say, “Go.” And I go. Alone. Through that Lenin-themed room. I walk into my cell—and there’s a new guy sitting there. A slightly stocky young man. When those animals took him into the detention center, they beat him so badly that the skin on his buttocks cracked and was bleeding. And his whole body was covered in bruises.
Then the guards come in behind me. At that moment, you have to give a report: state your full name, year of birth, say how many people are in the cell, and confirm that nothing has happened. God forbid you say a word in Ukrainian. One of us did that, and they beat him up for it. After that, we decided that only I would give the report. Since I’m already old, maybe they won’t beat me as hard.
So, I’m giving the report. And the guard yells, “Shut the f*** up! Get out!”
And I’m already thinking, maybe this new guy told them something about me. They told me again: “Get your things and get out!” And that could mean either release or a transfer to another cell. I left my things near the cell, then they took me to a room where there were bags of civilian clothes. They gave me one of the bags. Then—the smoking room. There was another man sitting there; he was about 70 years old. He’d worked as a security guard in Gostomel. And there was also that man whose hands didn’t work. We changed into our civilian clothes and talked among ourselves about the exchange—whether it would happen or not. I ended up with some women’s clothes—a smaller size—but it didn’t matter.
And then they brought six people into the smoking room. From Tula. They looked so neat—shaved and with neat haircuts. And there we were, unkempt, looking like homeless people. These six tell us they had cigarettes, apples, and went for walks. A resort. And one of the prisoners says to me, “Uncle Sasha, but these guys are from the ‘DPR.’” And I can’t believe that the Russians shoved their own people in here with us.
They put us in police vans. Whereas before they’d haul us around like canned fish, this time I was riding alone. They brought us to the airfield. My mind is already in Belarus. I can already see myself returning home. And then I hear that we’re heading back because someone refused the exchange.
“Who the f*** refused the exchange?! Are you f***ing assholes?! – I couldn’t take it anymore and started yelling out the window.
We stood there for two hours and then drove back. I thought: We had this chance—how could this happen! They took us back to the reception area again. The guards were really happy about that.
But they didn’t touch us this time. Only the guys from Tula. And the guards are crafty: first, they filmed all of us to show we weren’t beaten up. Because whether Russia wins or loses the war, the prison guards are always thinking about how they’ll be judged later, and they need to cover their own asses. They handed out bags for us to put our clothes in and gave us prison uniforms again. And we were sitting in the smoking room again. Finally, they brought in those guys from the “DPR.” Their hair was already shaved, just like ours. And they’d been beaten—they were all bruised. Some had even started slurring their words. They were beaten with sticks and stun guns, and they were singing songs. The whole routine.
They put everyone in cells for the night, and at five in the morning they roused us again and dragged us to the smoking room. While we were looking for our labeled bags, the guards beat us, but by then we didn’t care anymore.
We’re sitting there, talking to those “DNR guys.” And it turns out that they were the ones who refused the exchange. Because they were told that the Ukrainian military would shoot them in the knees. What a bunch of f***ers to believe that, honestly.
They led us out into the courtyard. And there, those “DNR guys” started talking shit again. Then they gathered us in a circle and said: “We’ll take you (‘DNR guys’) to Rostov; we won’t hand you over to the Ukrainians. From there, you’ll go home. But remember our kindness. Tell everyone you meet what happened to you. And for those who get captured—it’ll be even worse. Tell them they need to go to the military registration and enlistment office, get a uniform, and help the valiant Russian army f*** the Ukrainians.” And again, they keep beating these “DNR” guys.
I notice our pretrial detention center prosecutor sitting on a small stool around the corner of the building. And that’s when I realize he’s the one who orchestrated all of this—the threats about shooting our knees, the refusal to exchange us, and the beatings. I think they beat them like that on purpose so they’d tell others and go off to fight out of fear.
Finally, they shoved us into a police van; this time they didn’t blindfold us, they just covered our eyes with hats. And at the airfield, they put us on a plane.
The Journey Home
We made our first stop somewhere in Rostov because they had to unload the prisoners from the “DPR.” They replaced them with other prisoners from the Zaporizhzhia region—from some government offices, as they themselves said. Then we flew for a long time, landed at some airfield, and were loaded onto a covered KamAZ truck. We were traveling like human beings now: we weren’t lying on the floor, but sitting on benches. I peeked through the tarp—there were some mountains all around. I thought: There definitely aren’t any mountains in Belarus. Could the Russians have made it all the way to the Carpathians? How could that be?
It turned out they were taking us to Sevastopol, to the naval academy. There, they made us undress again and searched us. And they told us we were in “barracks conditions.” That is, we could move around the grounds, there were showers, and normal beds. Just your average barracks. And cigarettes. Because in the detention center, we’d been smoking tree bark.
There were also some other guys with us—soldiers. I didn’t have time to get to know them because they were taken away quickly. There was a TV on which Gazmanov was singing. I saw some acquaintances with whom I’d been captured. There was also a woman from Mariupol who was telling someone on camera that she hated Ukraine and didn’t want to be part of a prisoner exchange.
The next day, they woke us up at five in the morning and put us back in the truck. I started arguing with that woman who didn’t want to be exchanged.
“Do you know what happened in Mariupol?” she asked me.
“No,” I said. “But I heard you gave the Russians a piece of your mind yesterday!
”
Then they told me that Mariupol no longer exists. The Russians destroyed it.
As we approached Chongar, I saw that everything was in ruins. There are burned-out cars, tanks, and houses. We’re driving in a convoy of military vehicles. There’s some artillery with us, some armored vehicles. When we left Crimea, they transferred us to another vehicle. Our guards there were either Chechens or Dagestanis. They kept their faces hidden from us the whole time so we wouldn’t see them.
They brought us to a destroyed bridge. They took the blindfolds off our eyes. They untied our hands. Two officers in white helmets approached us and said they needed stretchers. Because on the other side, there were wounded soldiers who couldn’t walk.
And so we walked across the blown-up bridge. We were going one way—while the Russians were being carried in the other.
I couldn’t take it anymore and shouted, “What, you bastards, have you had your fill of Ukrainian soil?!”
The other guys started yelling at me, but the colonel who had picked us up said, “That’s exactly right.”
And then, along the way, they start telling us the news: Kyiv Oblast—liberated. Chernihiv Oblast—liberated. Sumy Oblast—liberated. The Russians have been pushed back from Kharkiv.
We sang the national anthem. Sincerely, from the heart. I wanted to fall to my knees and just kiss that ground. I’m a tough guy, but that made me start crying.
Then there was a comfortable bus that took us to Zaporizhzhia.
The first thing I did was go and shave right away. So I wouldn’t have to go home looking like that. I woke up in the morning and met with Iryna Vereshchuk. Maybe she really isn’t quite right, but to me she’s a good person. Because she came to meet us and talked with us.
I step out onto the street and see a bus heading to Pushcha-Vodytsia. I want to go home, but they tell me, “You can’t! You have to go through rehabilitation!”
“I’ll rehabilitate whoever you want myself,” I thought to myself. And I took that bus home.
My family had already been called by then; they were told I was alive. The head of the local community even came to our house to let us know. Because the Russians had stolen our phones. But one of the guys sitting with me had managed to hide his phone. So I memorized his number. And then I dictated it when I was released from captivity.
Eventually, I found myself back home in Mykulychi.
I was held captive for 44 days: from March 2 to April 16.
Most of the guys who were captured by the Russians with us have already been released. The man who had problems with his hands is also from the Kyiv region. He’s currently undergoing rehabilitation. A wounded Territorial Defense soldier, whom the Russians pulled out of a police van on March 8, was reportedly seen in one of the hospitals for prisoners of war in Kursk. I still hope he’s alive and will be able to return home.
As for me… I’m working as a tractor operator again. Right now, I’m helping set up shelters in schools.
This project is being implemented with financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic as part of the Transition Promotion Program.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.
This is an automatic translation generated by DeepL.