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Olexander Zarva worked at the Novator plant as an injection moulding machine foundryman with third degree skill qualifications.  In 2015 he received his military summons to the recruitment office to go and defend his Fatherland. So since 2015 and up to the date when he was taken prisoner Olexander was serving in the border patrol. His place of service was the 3rd border detachment named after the Hero of Ukraine Yevhen Pikysov. Olexander was a senior sergeant and worked as a driver in the department of border guard inspectors.

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On 15th of January Olexander was sent on a mission to Valyika. On the night from 23rd to 24th of February the Russian helicopters crossed the border of Ukraine and the full-scale invasion started. Olexander’s detachment was spread along the border. Despite the fact that the border guards were well trained there were not enough personnel and military equipment to resist the enemy. The border guards had to retreat into the direction of Kharkiv, to the town of Borova. There they were holding the line in defense of Borova and then they were surrounded but before that they had destroyed a column of Russian military. The border guards were given orders to get out of the encirclement. But at that point unfortunately they couldn’t do it. Olexander, who was the senior sergeant, and other soldiers got in their patrol car and tried to break through but the Russians fired on their patrol 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 prisoners. It happened on 13th of April 2022 and for a long time Olexander was considered to be missing.

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The Russians tied their hands and blindfolded them, taking the border guards from place to place.  When they finally untied their prisoners, Olexander understood that they had crossed the border into Russia. The border guards were put into another vehicle and brought to a POW camp where they were interrogated. The enemy wanted to know who they were, where they were from and where they served. The Russians were real vandals and marauders. They took away all their personal belongings. They even took away Olexander’s golden cross on a golden chain that was given to Olexander when he was baptized. It seemed to Olexander that if he had gold teeth, the Russians would pull 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 up the leg. That was it. The border guard stayed in that POW 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 seen such atrocities against a human being.  Olexander could not understand what harm they had ever done to their torturers, who claimed to be Slavic people and that they had to 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. 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. As a welcoming gesture they were also mercilessly beaten there and it was the place where they were to serve their sentence without any trial. The routine was as follows: 6 am, get up and sing the Russian anthem. Then breakfast. There were six people in their cell. There was porridge for breakfast. There were 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 the Russians believed that porridge was too much for them so they stopped giving bread for breakfast. 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 some tea or some 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 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.

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The prisoners were not allowed to sit or lie down during the day, so they had to stand for sixteen hours a day, they had to eat their meals standing, they had to ask permission to open or close the window, to use the toilet, etc.  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 the Russians would take them to a bathhouse.  They could shave there too. The prisoners had to mend their clothes themselves as well. The heating would be switched on at the will of their warders. They had to walk in slippers. Later they were given boots. The POWs would be taken for a walk in the prison yard only in summer. The POWs had been given the books of Lenin and Stalin which they had to read. In this way the Russians were educating them, trying to make them Russian patriots. Then the Russians brought a list of the Heroes of Russia who fell 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, etc. After some time their gaolers 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 gaolers would tell them that the whole of Ukraine had already been conquered by Russia. But the POWs did not believe them. And the POWs got the real information from those pseudo heroes on the Russian lists as they contained information on where the “hero” was killed. The POWs understood that actually the Russians were at the same positions all the time. They could not move further on. The POWs were also made to shout slogans against the Ukrainian president. They 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 say something that was completely wrong.

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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. From a moral point of view it was really the most difficult. 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. Besides 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 fence of their prison. Patience and more patience was the main thing. Besides the POWs were praying as they believed that in such circumstances only God could help them. It was very important to communicate in the cell among themselves. It was not allowed to speak Ukrainian. But the POWs would violate that law though they could be punished for speaking Ukrainian.

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The main task for the Russian warders was to write reports about the 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 the prisoners. One prisoner got 15 years and another got 25 years. They were taken away, nobody knew where to,  and nobody saw them again.

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Olexander tried to explain to one of his interrogators that he was a border guard. So his task was to watch the border of his country.  Olexander was protecting the border from intruders from the outside of Ukraine. It was Olexander’s job to guard the border of his country. So what kind of crime did Olexander perform guarding the border of his country. But his reasons did not get through to his interrogators. They would bring up the following arguments : it’s your government that is to blame, it’s Zelensky who is to blame, they don’t want to exchange you, etc, etc, etc. Though one of the interrogators said: “If we hadn’t attacked you, we knew for a fact that your Zelensky wanted to capture Arhangelsk and Kuban.” In fact, those Russians were completely uneducated people. For example, when the warders tried to solve crosswords or played “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 uniform of their warders said “ Spetsnaz” (Russian Special Forces) though they were wearing Ukrainian army boots and some pieces of Ukrainian uniform which they had taken off 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 whom the Russians called Bandera, a fan of ULTRAS.  He and Olexander were the star attraction of the Russian programme. The Russians enjoyed torturing them. Because of their tattoos the Russians set their dogs on Olexander and his friend.  Olexander supported and encouraged the other POWs.

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One day the Russians gave Olexander a piece of paper dictating what he should write: “Dear Mum. Everything is OK with me. I am well. I am alive and I am healthy.” In fact, his mother wrote back to Olexander but the warders did not give his mother’s letter to Olexander to read. Actually Olexander had been reported missing for half a year and it was due to Olexander’s note that she found out he was a POW. Some Russian volunteers would visit their prison and allowed some POWs make a video call to their families but not everyone. Olexander did not have that privilege. There were also visits from Russian prosecutors 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 prosecutors’ departure. The beatings stopped only when they were preparing prisoners for the exchange.

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One evening right after dinner the door of their cell was opened and the order: “Prisoner of war Zarva Olexander pack up and leave”.  Olexander thought that he would be moved to another cell. There were three other prisoners moved besides Olexander. They were taken to the main building where they had to change into Ukrainian uniform, so the POWs understood that they would be exchanged. When they left the prison the temperature was minus 28 degrees Celsius. And they only had their uniforms on. There was no heating in the police van. It took them four hours to drive the prisoners. Due to such conditions their tooth enamel peeled off.  Then the Russians put sacks on their heads and took them to the border in a bus. When Olexander left the bus and saw Ukrainian soldiers his first words were: “Friends, please give me a cigarette.” Then they started singing the anthem of Ukraine. Then Olexander was given a mobile phone. He called his friend because he completely forgot his mother’s phone number. His friend ran to his mother’s place to tell her the good news. Olexander’s mother was sobbing. 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 long enough to see his son back. He had died. During the first several days Olexander could hardly believe that he wasn’t in the camp and nobody would shout: ‘Get up, you sons of bitches, etc, etc, etc. but with time when his mother came to see him, and when his friends came to see him, gradually Olexander realized that he really was back from Russian captivity. Olexander still has to take sleeping pills as his sleep is very light. The other POWs are in a much worse state. At the moment Olexander is undergoing treatment in hospital. Wonderful food. They feed the released POWs here like a prize turkey. And such a kind and human attitude. Olexander will have some more time for his rehabilitation and then he is planning to go back to the front and fight. Olexander believes that good will triumph. The Ukrainians are not to blame in this war. Up to this day it’s hard for Olexander to understand the true reasons for Russia to start the war. We all have to fight them back. We all have to stand to the last ditch. We are unbreakable.  Our people are unconquerable and enduring. Our war is the people’s war. Ukraine will win!