Ukraine hopes for New Yr prisoner swap with Russia

A Ukrainian official instructed the BBC he hoped a New Yr’s prisoner trade with Russia would happen “any day now”, though preparations may fall via on the final minute.

Petro Yatsenko, of Ukraine’s headquarters for the therapy of prisoners of warfare, stated negotiations with Moscow over prisoner exchanges had change into harder in latest months since Russian forces started making important progress on the road of warfare. brow.

There have only been 10 exchanges in 2024the bottom determine for the reason that begin of the large-scale invasion. Ukraine doesn’t publish the variety of prisoners of warfare held by Russia, however the complete quantity is estimated to exceed 8,000.

Russia has made important progress on the battlefield this 12 months, elevating fears of a rise within the variety of Ukrainians captured.

One of many returnees over the past trade, in September 2024, is Ukrainian sailor Andriy Turas. In an residence within the Ukrainian metropolis of Lviv, Andriy and his spouse Lena inform me the outstanding story of their ordeal. Each had been captured whereas defending town of Mariupol in 2022.

“They lectured us about how Ukraine by no means existed,” Lena, a fight medic, says of her Russian captors. “They tried to exterminate our Ukrainian identification in our heads.”

Lena was launched after two weeks of captivity. However the psychological scars of what she skilled in a Russian prisoner of warfare middle stay. “We always heard screams, we knew the lads [in our unit] had been tortured,” she stated.

“They beat us mercilessly, with their fists, their sticks, their hammers, no matter they may discover,” says Andriy. “They stripped us bare within the chilly and compelled us to crawl on the asphalt. Our legs had been torn and we had been terrified and freezing.”

“The meals was horrible – bitter cabbage and rotten fish heads. It’s only a nightmare,” the sailor stated. “It’s like waking up from a nasty dream in the course of the evening, drenched in sweat and terrified.”

Andriy’s incarceration lasted for much longer than his spouse’s: two and a half years.

Upon his launch in the course of the prisoner trade three months in the past, Andriy met his two-year-old son Léon for the primary time. When the couple was captured by Russian forces, Lena didn’t know she was anticipating a baby.

“After I came upon I used to be pregnant, I simply cried, first with happiness, then with disappointment, as a result of I could not inform my husband.”

“I always wrote him letters to inform him that he would lastly have a baby that he had needed for thus lengthy,” says Lena, her eyes shining. “However he didn’t obtain a single letter.”

I ask Andriy the way it feels to satisfy his son for the primary time. “I assumed I used to be the happiest individual on this planet,” he says, smiling.

Though the BBC can not independently confirm all the pieces Lena and Andriy have instructed us, their accounts are corroborated by worldwide organizations, which have interviewed a whole lot of Ukrainian prisoners of warfare.

The UN says Russia topics Ukrainian prisoners to “widespread and systematic torture and mistreatment…together with extreme beatings, electrical shocks, sexual violence, choking, extended stress positions, train extreme power, sleep deprivation, mock executions, threats of violence and humiliation. “

In a press release to the BBC, the Russian Embassy in London stated: “The allegations you’ve got described are demonstrably false. Captured Ukrainian activists are handled humanely and in full compliance with the provisions of related Russian laws and the Geneva Conference. with good high quality meals, shelter, medical help, non secular and mental nourishment.

Andriy is present process rehabilitation in a medical establishment in Lviv. However he nonetheless has time to benefit from the holidays together with his spouse and son. It is the Turas household’s first Christmas collectively, and the most effective reward for little Léon is having daddy residence.

However many Ukrainians are nonetheless desperately ready for information of their family members. In central kyiv, family members and activists collect for a particular Christmas demonstration to demand the discharge of Ukrainian prisoners.

They stand for hours within the bitter chilly alongside one of many capital’s primary streets, whereas passing motorists honk their horns in a deafening cacophony of solidarity.

“We hope for a Christmas miracle,” says Tetiana, whose son Artem, 24, was captured virtually three years in the past. “The discharge of my son is my dearest want. I’ve imagined 100 instances our assembly, when he and I embrace one another, and his eyes mild up and he’s lastly in his fatherland. “

Additionally on the protest, holding a pink signal, was Liliya Ivashchyk, 29, a ballet dancer on the Kyiv Nationwide Operetta Theater. Russian forces captured her boyfriend Bohdan in 2022. She has had no contact with him since.

“I may say it is arduous for me to be alone, however I do not need to say that, as a result of I at all times take into consideration how he is doing there,” Liliya says.

Behind the scenes of the theater, Liliya reveals us the messages she nonetheless sends Bohdan virtually daily: pictures of little hearts. “I miss him loads. He must be saved and regain his freedom,” she stated, her decrease lip trembling. Messages are usually not learn.

Liliya invitations us to see her carry out in a particular present on Christmas Day. This dance is likely one of the favourite festivals in Ukraine: the Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss, written in 1866 to spice up the morale of the Austrian public after a warfare. The theater is packed.

“The Christmas holidays are a painful time,” she confides as she prepares to go on stage. “There’s not likely a festive environment.”

On the finish of the present, spectators rush to gather their coats. After virtually three years of warfare, virtually everybody right here has a cherished one combating on the entrance strains, in captivity or killed in motion.

“Many individuals in Ukraine face troublesome conditions,” says Liliya. “We’re simply ready for the time after we can rejoice collectively once more. We should not overlook to thank our military for the truth that we have now a vacation.”