This is how Vladyslav joined the Azov regiment

 

Mykola Kravchenko, call-sign Raven (Kruk in Ukrainian), a PhD in history and Vladyslav's friend, was closely connected with the Ukrainian nationalist movement. He invited Vladyslav to join Azov as he had a great respect for him as a personality and a scholar. Mykola's main interest was the Free Cossack movement while Vladyslav was very interested in Cossack military leaders.

 

Vladyslav was invited to give lectures on the military history of Ukraine to cadets at the 1st Banner of Mykola Stsiborskyi School which trained deputy commanders of the Azov regiment. Azov did not have, and never would have, its own political instructors. In 2021 Vladyslav signed a contract with Azov and continued to give lectures.

 

To give lectures at the Azov was a wonderful experience for Vladyslav. It was not like teaching students, not even adult students as Vladyslav had correspondence students at the University as well. It was communication with fighters who had a real interest in the military history of Ukraine. When he finished his course of lectures Vladyslav was offered the position of school director of that school although it had classes only once a year. He agreed and would come periodically to give lectures. Vladyslav enjoyed lecturing there and in 2020 he realised that he had to learn combat at the Azov as so many people encouraged him to join the regiment. On the 1st of December 2020 Vladyslav arrived at the Azov base saying, “I am ready to serve. I will sign a contract to prepare lectures and be demobilised. My family supports me. And after that I will continue my lecturing career at the university.''

 

Incidentally some of Vladyslav's former students were in the regiment at that time, and most of them were already officers while Vladyslav started with the rank of private soldier. In those days Azov servicemen did not wear military insignia at the training base so when Vladyslav was asked about his military rank he would answer, “I am a Doctor of History, an associate professor”. It was a very popular joke. Then Vladyslav got promoted to sergeant. In Azov your military rank corresponded to your status. All officers started as private soldiers so they understood what problems a private soldier might have, they understood what they lacked and what they needed to learn and practice and where they might be slacking. That is why Azov was like a family where people knew each other. With time Vladyslav realised that Azov was really his second family. Before the outbreak of the great Russian-Ukrainian war, Vladyslav called his wife in Kyiv and told her to leave the city as according to all signs the Russians were planning to attack Ukraine. But his wife did not believe him as the leadership of the country had assured the population that the war with Russia was impossible.

 

Vladyslav believed that the Azov soldiers were not scared of the Russian attack. They were all real patriots ready to defend their land and their families. They had gone through a very tough selection to become the soldiers of the Azov regiment and so when the war started you could read in their eyes, “We will solve this problem”. This fighting spirit did not go away. Despite all the losses, despite exhaustion, catastrophic tiredness, hunger, lack of ammunition, Vladyslav never saw despair among the Azov fighters. Was that why the Russians hated the Azov defenders so much? Was that why the Russians were so scared of the Azov fighters? The Azov fighters were like a red rag to a bull. Russian ideology is built on hatred to Azov – it is like the corner stone of their ideology. That was why the Russians put all the made so many accusations about Azov. And although all those accusations were refuted again and again and again up to this very day the Russians still blame Azov.

 

Into captivity

 

It was extraordinary when so many Azov fighters were taken into captivity, a great and unexpected present for the Russians. The Azov fighters were offered “honourable captivity”. That was what the Russians promised. They gave the word of an officer. And the conditions to which the Azov fighters agreed to when they left Azovstal were actually good. The Russians promised to keep to the Geneva Convention, to allow the prisoners to communicate with their relatives, to use the telephone, not to punish those who had patriotic tattoos, and to allow free movement inside the Olenivka camp. The Russians also promised to give the Azov fighters access to shops and said that they could take money or personal belongings with them. Vladyslav knew all those details as they were announced as the arrangements at the highest level. The Azov commander in chief himself joined the negotiations and there was a list of names of people on the Russian side who had the authority to conduct negotiations, the Russian Generals with whom the negotiations were conducted. They had given their word as officers. Then all those conditions and arrangements were announced. If there were other conditions the Azov commander in chief Redis would never have agreed. He was a man of honour, a man of his word. A man who values his personnel, he values every single soldier and that was why he would never have agreed to the other conditions of the Russian captivity. History repeats itself. Russia never keeps its promises.

 

So the Azov defenders had no fears when they were ordered to leave the Azovstal because they had been told about the agreement. They believed that they would be exchanged in 3-4 months and they knew about the humanitarian agreement too.

 

The Azov defenders went into captivity in May 2022 and around 300 were freed in POW exchanges in the first twelve months of captivity – but very few indeed have been exchanged since then. The largest single exchange, 108 defenders, was in September 2022 and that was when Vladyslav was exchanged. After rehabilitation those 300 Azov soldiers went on to serve, and practically the majority of them continued to fight. And many of them were killed. They were very heroic soldiers. They could have been demobilised and were allowed to leave the country. Most of them are very well educated people, many of them used to work abroad, they had nice positions in some leading companies but they stayed, fought and gave their lives for Ukraine.

 

“We all know the Russians”, said Vladyslav. The prisoners understood that all the conditions of their captivity would not be kept. But there were some fundamental issues. The first time alarm bells started to ring was at the beginning when the Azov defenders started leaving the Azovstal. The Russian were rummaging through their belongings and took some of the soldiers’ things, despite the fact that they had promised that the fighters could take money and their personal belongings. The Russians took Vladyslav's watch (“you are not allowed an electronic watch!”). Vladyslav had 800 Hryvnias in his passport and the Russians passed his passport from hand to hand until finally the money disappeared. They gave back the passport and told him to “hurry up, hurry up”. Vladyslav opened his passport, no money but what could you say to a Russian. They are shameless. They were definitely Russians because they had the tricolour flag on their uniforms not the symbols of the so called Donbas People's Republic.

 

Olenivka

 

When the POWs arrived at the Olenivka camp they understood that conditions were not at all what the Russians had promised. They did not have freedom of movement. The barrack that was meant to accommodate 100 or at most 120 people had to accommodate 322. The barrack measured 50 steps along the wall and 12 steps across. There were no beds, actually there was nothing there. It was a good thing that some of the POWs had sleeping bags with them or camping mats but most of them had to sleep on the floor. Much later the Russians brought beds. By comparison the living conditions for the Russian POWs in Ukraine are such that you could say they do not have such good conditions in their houses in Russia. Or that the conditions are so comfortable that it looks like it is a resort. They have nourishing meals three times a day. They get desserts, they gain weight. No wonder many of them do not want to be exchanged and go back to Russia. While Ukrainian POWs did not even have mattresses on their beds. The crockery in Olenivka went back to 1952, that is metal crockery used during the Stalin period. The prisoners felt like the dissidents who were kept in the Stalin Gulag. Conditions were very unsanitary – water for example was brought by the fire engine by the Donetsk fire fighters. And it did not strike them to hide that they were taking that water straight from a pond. The “drinking water” they were bringing for the Ukrainian POWs had sand and all kinds of microorganisms in it. But when one is thirsty, one had to drink it. There was a manhole that seemed to be a sewer hatch but it was not. And there was water there. The POWs saw it and using a big, rusted metal can which had contained tomato paste, they managed to lower it into the hole to take water. They used this water not for drinking but for their sanitary needs. After taking out 4-5 buckets of that water the silt rose and they would have to have a break to let the water settle. No one had a 1.5 ml plastic water bottle because the guards had taken them but when the guards had finished drinking our water bottles they threw the empty bottles into the litter. The national guardsmen who had the task of cleaning the territory of the camp would sometimes manage to throw the empty bottles into the POW barracks. It was very important for everyone to have their own bottle as there was no other vessel to put your water in. So the procedure was as follows: you would put the water on the windowsill and wait until all the mud, silt and sludge settled. And after that one could drink it. However later the Russians established a water supply and the POWs could get water from the tap.

 

The food was very unsatisfactory as well. The colony was not fit for such a number of POWs. So the Russians would feed them only once a day at the beginning. But even later when the kitchen started working to meet the needs of the POWs, the helpings were very tiny. Sometimes lunch could be at 2am in the morning. The warder would shout, “Get up for your lunch!"

 

However, hunger was not the most terrible thing in Olenivka colony. First of all it was summer and in summer one would need less energy. Secondly, the soldiers had not seen the sun at Azovstal for a long time. Here they could see the sun. The POWs could hear artillery fire and from time to time the Russians would bring a Grad rocket launcher to the walls of the camp to fire in the direction of the Ukrainian positions.

 

Once returning from an interrogation with the FSB, Vladyslav picked up a schoolbook in Ukrainian Literature for the 9th grade. It was the only Ukrainian book. The books the POWs were supplied with were Russian classics or Soviet literature, mainly about partisans during the Second World War or terrible fascists. You could not read them without a smile as it was pure propaganda.

 

Interviews with journalists at Olenivka

 

A number of Russian journalists and bloggers came to interview the POWs. There were also journalists from the Donetsk People's Republic. Once there was a historian. That was a very interesting experience for Vladyslav as a professional historian himself. It was a kind of intellectual duel. And they would certainly lose.

 

Vladyslav was of a particular interest to the Russians as it was not very often that they could capture a scholar, someone who was very knowledgeable about history who would not be easily fooled by Russian propaganda.

 

Practically every interview was a kind of battle between the Russian and the Ukrainian outlook, between the Russian mentality and the Ukrainian mentality.

 

Sometimes the FSB officer would come accompanied by a trainee, a future FSB officer. The interrogation would be conducted by the trainee who had to sit opposite Vladyslav while the FSB officer would be there like a professor taking an exam and listening to the questions and answers. One of the trainees was particularly good and Vladyslav was surprised that he knew so many details of Ukrainian history. Still, Vladyslav would always win those intellectual duels and the FSB officer would send the trainee back to the library to work harder with the documents.

 

It was a very interesting experience for Vladyslav too. He could see how the Russians were training their FSB officers and how for them Vladyslav was like a punchbag.

 

Once there was a group from the Russian TV station NTV programme “New Russian Sensations”. The interviewers included a Russian man, Alexander, with an intelligent face and good manners and a woman, Natasha, with very brutal manners, emotionally unstable. Vladyslav gave her the nickname “Crazy empress”. She was a Ukrainophobe and she was particularly aggressive towards Ukrainian women. And there were two cameramen, one was from the Crimea and the other was from Donetsk. Such a mixture of people, both intellectually and ideologically in Vladyslav’s opinion. The team came three times and made 6 hours of footage. And then they released a 40 minute film. Luckily, it went on air after Vladyslav had been exchanged otherwise the situation for Vladyslav could have dramatically changed. They showed Vladyslav as a committed fascist but it was absurd. According to their version Vladyslav was a senior sergeant, staying in complete isolation at the Azovstal, and had spread his network all over Ukraine, influencing all the politicians and even the president himself, who they claimed was “scared of Vladyslav”. It was a very positive experience for Vladyslav who enjoyed the opportunity to demolish their arguments with his understanding of Ukrainian history. The wardens who had to accompany Vladyslav when he was interviewed were very eager to hear his stories and they even addressed Vladyslav as “major”.

 

At one point Vladyslav was asked to compare the defence of Mariupol with the Second World War and he said “Stalingrad”. This caused indignation among the Russian journalists, “How dare you!” But Vladyslav said, “I dare because my grandfather fought in Stalingrad. And 10 million Ukrainians who fought in the Soviet army were killed during the Second World War”.

 

There were some funny situations too. Once Natasha said, “After our first conversation with you, I could not sleep for two nights”. And Vladyslav looked at her saying: “Natasha, pull yourself together. You know that I am married”. All around burst out laughing and she was ready to explode, but she controlled herself and said, “I am talking to a clever person”. Vladyslav said, “You see how lucky you are” and everyone started laughing again.

 

Later he was asked “Do you smoke?”. “No, I don't, but I will take some for my friends”, replied Vladyslav and took the whole pack of cigarettes. The cameramen laughed and Alexander, an intelligent person, realised he could not take the cigarettes away from Vladyslav without looking like a cheapskate.

 

Natasha however could not control herself – she slapped the cameraman who was laughing very loudly at Vladyslav’s mockery of her. And Vladyslav was punished too. They ordered him to stand for 6 hours in the scorching sun with his hands behind his back and his head lowered. But he was comforted by the fact that they forgot to take away that pack of cigarettes in his pocket for his smoker friends. When he was back in the barrack, his adrenalin still high after the interview, his friends surrounded him and asked, “How did it go?”

 

There was another thing. The Russians would usually call you out for interrogation before lunch and you would miss your lunch. The portions were very tiny and the POWs needed energy. Starvation would dull the brain. But your starving cellmates would wrap your tiny portion into a towel and it would be waiting for you to return. And as soon as you return their first words would be, “Eat it”. They would wait until you finished eating and only then ask, “Tell us.”

 

Reflections after exchange

 

After his exchange the first lecture Vladyslav gave was “Unbreakable Ukrainian rebels in the Stalinist labour camps”. He spoke about Ukrainian prisoners who held on even though they had been sentenced to 25 years in the camps. As he explained, the Russians have now raised the value of the Azov defenders to its maximum. They are all accused of terrorism and given either 24 years in a Russian prison or a life sentence. The physical state of the Azov POWs is catastrophic. They are exhausted by beatings, malnourishment, starvation and constant torture. They are barely alive. And in this situation they agree to take the blame, to take all the accusations that the Russians give them. It is really tragic when a POW crawls back to his cell after being tortured and asks his cellmates to be the witnesses at his trial as if they all had witnessed his presumed atrocities.

 

Vladyslav asked the interviewer filming him why they did not film Russian POWs admitting the real atrocities they had performed on Ukrainian territory. These Russian POWs (particularly new recruits and the Chechen Kadyrovites) could have asked to be exchanged for the AZOV defenders. Where is our Ukrainian propaganda machine? Or we could take one of the Russian POWs and make a hero of him so that his value as exchange material would be increased he might be exchanged for an Azov defender.

 

And finally, there is one thing that greatly concerns Vladyslav. Where are the representatives of the Red Cross in Ukraine when our POWs are back from the Russian captivity? They should register in what condition the Ukrainian POWs return from captivity. The Red Cross in Ukraine should register all the results of the beatings, all the bodily injuries, the maiming, the mutilation. What else does the Red Cross exist for? And why do the Red Cross representatives in Ukraine measure the dimensions of the cells and the calories in the food of the Russian POWs but do nothing for the Ukrainian POWs?