​​​Olexander Zarva was a border guard in Luhansk until his capture by the Russians in April 2022.  He was freed in January 2024 as part of the largest prisoner exchange in the war to date.  This is his story.

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After studying at university Olexander began work as a foundryman in the injection moulding section at the large Novator factory in the central Ukrainian city of Khmelnitsky.  He has always been very patriotic and had had a tattoo of the Ukrainian trident on his arm since he was a student in his teens.  So in 2015, as the war in the east of Ukraine was taking off, he volunteered at the military recruitment office and was sent to serve as a border guard in Luhansk, defending Ukraine’s eastern border against Russian incursion.  He was in the 3rd “Yevhen Pikysov” Luhansk Border Detachment, named after a Hero of Ukraine.  By 2022 he was a senior sergeant and worked as an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) driver.

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​On 15th of January 2022 Olexander was sent on a mission to Valuyki, a hamlet near the Russian border of Luhansk region. On the night of the 23rd to 24th of February that year Russian helicopters crossed the Ukraine border and the full-scale invasion started. Olexander’s detachment was spread all along the border and although the border guards were well trained there were not enough personnel and military equipment to resist the enemy. The border guards had to retreat west in the direction of Kharkiv, to the town of Borova. In early April they were defending Borova and had destroyed a column of Russian military before they were surrounded by the enemy.  The border guards were given orders to get out of the encirclement but at that point unfortunately they were unable to do that. Olexander, who was the senior sergeant, destroyed his APC so that the enemy did not get it and he and the other soldiers got in their patrol car and tried to break through but the Russians fired on their vehicle. One border guard was killed, Olexander and the other one were wounded. While Olexander was providing first aid to his wounded comrade-in-arms they were taken prisoner. This happened on 13th of April 2022 and for a long time Olexander was considered as missing.

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​Still in shock and wounded, Olexander and his fellow guard had their hands tied by their captors and they were blindfolded and taken from place to place.  When they finally untied their prisoners, Olexander understood that they had crossed the border into Russia. At first they were placed in a tented POW camp, where they were interrogated. The Russians wanted to know who they were, where they were from and where they served. Their captors were real vandals and marauders, taking away all the prisoners’ personal belongings, even the golden cross on a golden chain that was given to Olexander when he was baptised. Olexander said that if he had had gold teeth he was sure the Russians would have pulled them out. 

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​The wounded border guards were given some sort of “medical help”. Olexander had a shrapnel wound in his leg so the doctors operated but without any anaesthesia. They cut his leg, cleaned the wound and then sewed it up. That was it. He stayed in that camp until 25th of April.  It was Easter and on the second day of Easter the imprisoned border guards were transported to a pre-trial detention centre.

It was there that all the horror started: beatings, torture, bullying, abuse, insults and humiliation. Sometimes their gaolers sprayed gas from a gas cylinder into the cells. Some POWs went mad. Olexander had never before seen such atrocities against a human being.  He could not understand what harm they had ever done to their torturers, who claimed to be Slavic people and should be friendly to other Slavic people, to be brothers. Olexander did not know what Ukrainians could have done to them that they were so inhuman. They set their dogs on the POWs, poured boiling water on their tattoos or cut out the tattoos with a saw, beat them mercilessly, just unbearable tortures. His own tattoo, depicting the Ukrainian trident and the folk hero Kotyhoroshko, was a constant focus of attention and the guards insisted he remove it.  “They gave me a brick. I said I wouldn't do it. They beat me, bullied me, but I didn't allow myself to do it," said Olexander to the journalist interviewing him later.

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The food that was given to them was worse than the food you would give to an animal: boiled potato peel, and so hot at that so that the captives could not eat it quickly and if they did not manage to finish their meal in five minutes because it was boiling hot, their torturers would take them out of their cells and beat them.  As a result the POWs lived on small pieces of bread and water. The imprisoned border guards stayed there till October 2022 and on 1st of October they were transported to another prison in Kineshma, in Russia’s Ivano region.

Kineshma was the place where they were to serve their sentence without any trial. As a welcoming gesture they were mercilessly beaten there on arrival and from then on this was the routine: 6 am, get up and sing the Russian anthem. Then breakfast. There were six people in their cell. There was porridge for breakfast and only three plates for six of them that is two people shared one plate. Three or three and a half spoons of porridge per person. At the beginning, the Russians gave them bread to eat with porridge but after some time their captors believed that porridge was too much for them so they stopped giving bread with it. Lunchtime – again three plates for the cell. The Russians gave them some thin prison soup. The ration was five spoons per person. As for the main course, there were only two plates of something nameless for six prisoners, that is three people would have to share one plate. The same procedure for dinner time. No bread for dinner time either. At the beginning the prisoners would be given tea or a jelly drink but then they stopped giving them anything to drink. There was water in the tap but it was not drinking water. As a result of this regime many prisoners lost their teeth. When Olexander was taken prisoner his weight was 115 kg but in the course of several months he lost 45 kg of his body weight and his weight became 70kg.

​The prisoners were not allowed to sit or lie down during the day, so they had to stand for sixteen hours a day and had to eat their meals standing.  They had to ask permission to open or close the window, or to use the toilet.  After lights out they could lie down although they might be woken up in the middle of the night to be taken out of their cells just to be beaten and then brought back to their cells. The prisoners had to do their laundry by themselves in their cells. They were given washing powder and had to wash everything in icy cold water. The Russians did not change the sheets. Once a week they were taken to a bathhouse and they could shave there too. The prisoners had to mend their clothes themselves. The heating would be switched on at the will of their warders. They had to walk in slippers but later they were given boots. They were taken for a walk in the prison yard only in summer.

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As for “culture” they were made to read the works of Lenin and Stalin.  The Russians were educating them, trying to make them Russian patriots. Then the warders brought them a list of “Heroes of Russia”, soldiers who had been killed in battles in the Luhansk region and near Kharkiv. The POWs had to learn the list by heart: names, surnames, patronymics, dates of birth and death, everything. After some time their jailors would come to check how well the prisoners had memorised the list. Any mistake and the prisoner would be beaten. Olexander did not have a single unbroken rib on both sides of his body. Their warders would switch on Russian songs on the loudspeaker to make the prisoners sing their songs. Their jailers would tell them that the whole of Ukraine had already been conquered by Russia. But the POWs did not believe them. They had discovered the from those lists of “heroes”.  The dates and places of death on the lists showed that the Russian forces were at the same positions all the time. They had not been able to advance anywhere, let alone over all Ukraine.

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The prisoners were also made to shout slogans against the Ukrainian president. The Russians had whole lists of anti-Ukrainian slogans. Olexander refused to shout such slogans as they were ridiculously wrong. Olexander’s warders ordered him to write a statement to the effect that he, Olexander Zarva, asked to be executed as he refused to obey orders. Then the date and Olexander’s signature. Twice Olexander was taken to be executed but he was not shot. Olexander did not want to repeat anything so completely untrue.

​Interrogations were conducted regularly. The Russians wanted to know where the Ukrainian bases were and other important military information. As Olexander had been a driver after several interrogations the Russians lost interest in him.

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​The most difficult thing in captivity was waiting for the exchange. And it was very important to support each other. Some POWs made loops from their sheets to hang themselves. Olexander did his best to stop them saying that it would be a great blow and tragedy for their parents and loved ones. And the Russians would not return their bodies to Ukraine. They would sooner put them into a hole and cover them with earth somewhere under the prison fence. Patience and more patience was essential. As well as that the prisoners would pray as they believed that only God could help them. It was very important to communicate in the cell among themselves and although they were not allowed to speak Ukrainian they would do so even though they could be punished for it.

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​The main task for the Russian warders was to write reports about war crimes committed by the POWs that were kept in their prison. There were regular visits of prosecutors from the occupied territories to hand out sentences to prisoners accused of such crimes. One prisoner got 15 years and another got 25 years. They were taken away, nobody knew where to, and never seen again.

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​Olexander tried to explain to one of his interrogators that he was a border guard and his task had been to watch the border of his country, to protect that border from intruders outside Ukraine. What kind of crime did he commit by guarding the border of his country? But his reasoning did not get through to his interrogators. They would bring up arguments like “it’s your government that is to blame”, “it’s Zelensky who is to blame”, “they don’t want to exchange you”, and so on and so forth. And one of the interrogators said “If we hadn’t attacked you, we knew for a fact that your Zelensky wanted to capture Archangelsk and Kuban.” In fact, those Russians were completely uneducated people. For example, when the warders tried to solve crosswords or played a game called “Cities” the POWs could hear them say “A city starting with the letter A?" and the answer would be "Australia". The POWs would just laugh at their ignorance.

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​The warders’ uniform was marked “Spetsnaz” (Russian Special Forces) though they were wearing Ukrainian army boots and some pieces of Ukrainian uniform which they had taken from Ukrainian prisoners. The prisoners were not allowed to look them straight in the eye, they had to bend double and keep their hands behind their back. There was one young Ukrainian soldier, a fan of the Ultras (patriotic football fans), whom the Russians called Bandera after the Second World War Ukrainian nationalist who fought the Soviets.  He and Olexander were the star attractions of the Russian programme. The Russians enjoyed torturing them and because of their tattoos the Russians set their dogs on Olexander and his friend.  

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​One day the Russians gave Olexander a piece of paper dictating that he should write “Dear Mum. Everything is OK with me. I am well. I am alive and I am healthy.”  His mother received the letter and wrote back to Olexander but the warders did not give him her reply.  However Olexander had been reported missing for half a year and it was due to his letter that she found out he was a POW.

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Some Russian volunteers would visit their prison and allowed some POWs make a video call to their families but not everyone, including Olexander, had that privilege. There were also visits from Russian lawyers who would ask the POWs if everything was OK with them. And the answer was always positive for the POWs knew that in case of a negative answer they would be beaten after the visitors’ departure. The beatings stopped only when the authorities started preparing prisoners for exchange.

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​One evening right after dinner the door of their cell was opened and they heard the order “Prisoner of war Zarva Olexander pack up and leave”.  At first Olexander thought that he was just going to be moved to another cell. There were three other prisoners leaving as well as Olexander. They were taken to the main building where they had to change into Ukrainian uniform, at which point they understood that they were to be exchanged. When they left the prison the temperature was minus 28 degrees Celsius. They only had their uniforms on and there was no heating in the police van. It took them four hours to drive the prisoners and due to the cold their tooth enamel peeled off.  When the van stopped the Russians put sacks on their heads and took them to the border in a bus.

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When Olexander left the bus he saw Ukrainian soldiers. His first words were “Friends, please give me a cigarette.” Then they started singing the anthem of Ukraine. After that Olexander was given a mobile phone and called his friend because he had completely forgotten his mother’s phone number. His friend ran to his mother’s home to tell her the good news. When Olexander was able to speak to her she could not stop crying. She could hardly believe that her son was finally back from Russian captivity. It was so emotional for Olexander to hear his mother’s voice. Unfortunately, his father did not live to see his son back – he had died during Olexander’s captivity.

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For some time Olexander could hardly believe that he was not in the camp and nobody would shout “Get up, you sons of bitches, etc, etc, etc.” but with time when his mother and his friends began coming to see him Olexander gradually realized that he really was back from Russian captivity. He still had to take sleeping pills as his sleep was very light. The other POWs were in a much worse state. At first Olexander was treated in hospital. Wonderful food. He told the interviewer that they feed the released POWs like prize turkeys. And such a kind and humane attitude.

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Olexander will have to spend some more time for his rehabilitation and then he is planning to go back to the front and fight. He believes that good will triumph. The Ukrainians are not to blame in this war. To this day it’s hard for Olexander to understand the true reasons why Russia started the war but he knows we must all fight back. We must all stand to the last ditch. We are unbreakable.  Our people are unconquerable and enduring. Our war is the people’s war. Ukraine will prevail!    

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