The Ordeal of Ukrainian Defenders: Inside the Battle and Captivity at Asowstal

What happened to the Asowstal fighters?

A year ago, the last Ukrainian defenders of the Asowstal plant surrendered to the Russian attackers – many are still in captivity. An ongoing ordeal for their families.
The Battle for Asowstal

On May 20, 2022, the battle for the Asowstal plant in Mariupol ended. The last Ukrainian soldiers laid down their arms and surrendered. Many prisoners of war – including the commanders – have since been exchanged. They speak of inhumane conditions, torture and insufficient food. Many soldiers emerge from captivity severely malnourished. How will their reintegration be possible? And how are those still waiting for their loved ones doing?

Unbearable imprisonment

Illia Samoilenko said this about a year ago on the tagesthemen. The soldier from the controversial Asow regiment was live connected at the time – from the contested Asowstal plant in Mariupol. For weeks, Ukrainian troops had been entrenched in underground bunkers. Then their situation seems hopeless.

“We cannot surrender to the Russians because that would mean our immediate death. They would immediately sentence us or we would go to jail for life or they would execute us, as has happened to other soldiers,” Samoilenko said at the time.

Inhumane prison conditions

Only a week after this interview, the soldiers lay down their arms – on the orders of the Ukrainian government, it is said. Since then, hundreds of men and women have been freed from captivity. The feared show trials or executions of the Asow commanders did not materialize.

However, relatives like Anna Naumenko report inhumane prison conditions and accuse Russia of violating the Geneva Convention: “The physical condition of the guys speaks for itself. At the last exchange, there was a man who had lost more than forty kilos, Dimitrij lost seventeen kilos,” Naumenko says.

Beatings until bones break

Naumenko’s husband Dmitrij was only recently released from custody. But most of those who fought with Dmitrij at Asowstal are still waiting for their release. Dmitrij told his wife about systematic torture, beatings until bones broke, darkness, and hunger in Russian captivity.

But that was not the worst for him, his wife said: “When the bunkers collapsed at the end of the Asowstal battle and there were many killed and injured, that was harder for him.” That left more marks than the torture, Naumenko said. Even daily beatings were not as mentally hard for her husband to bear as what happened at Asowstal.

Relatives fight for releases

Anna Naumenko is still surprised. When Dmitrij came home, he was doing surprisingly well, she reports. Together with other relatives, Naumenko is continuing to fight for the release of the other prisoners. They try to put old or severely injured soldiers on the exchange lists of the Ukrainian military intelligence service.

But nobody can give them a guarantee, says Tamara Prozenko. Her friend Oleksandr is also in captivity. “It’s Russian roulette as to who will be exchanged and who won’t be. Every exchange is really horrible,” she complains. Her friend has already sat in the bus home twice – then they simply led him back into captivity. “A few minutes or hours before the exchange, he was simply taken out of the bus without explanation,” says Prozenko.

“The longer, the worse”

Oleksandr celebrated his 20th birthday in captivity. He was last seen by fellow prisoners in a camp in Russia – in poor health, Prozenko reports. Sometimes, the 21-year-old feels guilty for not doing enough to secure his release.

“It’s hard, especially when you see the condition the guys arrive in. You understand: the longer, the worse. Especially when they are constantly being moved,” Prozenko describes the situation. In each new detention center, the men are tortured and interrogated anew.

The last major prisoner exchange took place in April. But Oleksandr was not among the 130 Ukrainians who returned home that day. A great burden for his girlfriend Tamara – for weeks, she can hardly get out of bed. She has to keep waiting, she says. And prepare for the worst.