A POW survived the Russian siege of Mariupol by hiding in the bunker at the Azovstal power plant. Released in a prisoner exchange, he says he intends to return to the front lines after healing from wounds. On the night of February 24, he was watching a movie with a friend. At 5am, he was woken up by a colleague: “Boys, get ready, it’s war!” The 21-year-old Bohdan, codenamed “Budapest”, is a fighter for the Azov Battalion – characterized by many as far-right – in Ukraine. He says that at first he did not want to believe it, but the alerts on his cell phone reported missile attacks in Kiev, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr and other cities. The men were immediately sent to Mariupol, the port municipality located on the Sea of Azov, where the Azovstal steel and metallurgical plant, one of the largest in Europe, is located in the south-east of the country.
Deutsche Welle met with Bohdan on September 1st in Kiev. The interview was organized by the Azov Battalion press office. The fighter believes that public relations work is one of the few things he can do to help his comrades who are being held captive by the Russians. Bohdan’s statements, however, could not be independently verified by DW. He says he was released on June 29, when the biggest prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine took place since the war began: 144 Ukrainians were released, including 95 steel defenders and 43 Azov members.
For the interview, Bohdan appeared in a black T-shirt with a symbol known as the “black sun”, which was used by Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. The symbol was part of Azov’s official emblem, but was later removed without further explanation. The battalion argues that the “black sun” is an ancient Ukrainian symbol that characterizes the destruction of the old and the construction of the new. The shirt, he says, was a gift from someone close to him.
hope of deliverance
Bohdan grew up in Kharkiv and speaks Russian. The tall, dark-haired, brown-eyed man needs a crutch to walk after sustaining a serious hip injury. He joined the Azov Battalion last year and spent the winter at a training camp near Mariupol. His friends went to the same place. His mother supported the decision, while his grandmother was totally against it.
Azov is part of the Ukrainian National Guard and is therefore subordinate to the country’s Ministry of Interior. The fighters are well trained. But the battalion is considered controversial because it contains nationalists and right-wing radicals. And this is used by Russia as a pretext for the war against Ukraine.
On March 7, says Bohdan, battles began in the streets of Mariupol. Three days later, the city was besieged. With each day, the belief that the garrison could handle defending the area on its own waned. Even so, the local population and Azov fighters had received assurances from the Ukrainian president’s office that the Russian siege would be broken.
“In April, I don’t remember exactly which day, they said the operation would start at 4 am”, says Bohdan. However, since in the next ten days nothing happened, he no longer counted on the offensive, as the columns with Ukrainian equipment were no longer able to reach the city. From then on, he realized that he would either be captured or he would die. “I knew we wouldn’t last long,” says the young man.
In the steel mill bunker
During the battles in Mariupol, Bohdan was wounded by fragments in the head and therefore taken by colleagues to the Azovstal bunker, where later all the fighters in the area took refuge. Due to his injuries, Bohdan had to remain lying on the spot. “The food supply was critical. A day I had a glass of porridge, sometimes just half a glass, and a small piece of bacon,” he recalls.
When the Russians dropped a bomb on the bunker, the room housing Bohdan and other wounded was buried. He was the only one to save himself, but he suffered more injuries. All other wounded died on the spot. Because of this, Bohdan recalls that more and more fighters expressed an intention to surrender. “They said there was no other way out. We would either be arrested, or we would die, something no one wanted,” he recalls. He didn’t want to be taken prisoner. But in the end, he had no choice but to surrender.
In mid-April, after Russian forces and pro-Moscow separatists took most of Mariupol, Ukrainian soldiers who still remained in the area, as well as civilians and foreign fighters, took refuge in the Azovstal bunker. It is estimated that there were 3,500 of them at the site. At the beginning of May, about 500 women and children were able to be evacuated. And on the night of May 16-17, hundreds of Ukrainians surrendered – on May 18, Russia reported that another 700 had surrendered.
From Novoazovsk to Donetsk
Bohdan remembers seeing Russian flags and symbols everywhere as he was carried on a stretcher out of Azovstal. First, he was taken by Russian occupiers to Novoazovsk in the Donbass, about 50 kilometers east of Mariupol. In that city, he was assisted by the Red Cross, a detail that he does not like to remember, because they asked him for contact details about his family, which he denied. Bohdan believes that such data would interest the Russians. “I said I would only give the phone away if I could call myself,” he says, stressing that he never saw the alleged Red Cross employees again. The fighter stayed for a day in Novoazovsk, where he says he was treated “normally”: “A Russian soldier injected me with a painkiller. He was ok,” he recalls.
After that, Bohdan was transferred to a hospital in Donetsk. All floors except one were staffed with wounded Ukrainian prisoners. On a separate floor were fighters from the self-proclaimed “Republic of Donetsk”. In rooms where there were Ukrainian soldiers, the doors had to be left open. They were often verbally humiliated by members of the “Republic of Donetsk”: “A nurse started saying how bad we were, and that we had been bombed for eight years,” recalls Bohdan.
One day, representatives of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) – the Russian secret service – approached him. “They wanted to know how much equipment the Azov Battalion had and where the ammunition depots were. They also wanted to know the names of the officers,” says Bohdan, adding that officials even asked why he had killed Russian soldiers. Bohdan replied, “Because you came to my house with weapons. When I see someone in a foreign uniform, then naturally I shoot.” In addition, a Russian investigator asked him if he admired “Bandera,” a controversial Ukrainian nationalist politician from the World War II era.
The long-awaited prisoner exchange
Bohdan was sad and disoriented that he could no longer see his family. He overheard a conversation about a prisoner exchange that had apparently failed. A colleague of Bohdan’s, who had theoretically been taken as part of the exchange, returned to the hospital. Later, according to Bohdan, it was announced to the prisoners that the Azov Battalion fighters would no longer be exchanged. At that moment, he was desperate.
One day, however, the wounded Ukrainian soldiers were told to pack their things. And a real prisoner exchange took place. “I couldn’t believe it,” recalls Bohdan, who still says: “I went to Zaporíjia, saw the city, the people. They immediately put me on a stretcher. Several doctors came to me, they all helped me”.
Bohdan believes that his companions will also return home soon. “Many of them are in Olenivka,” he says, making it clear that he does not trust Russian lists of wounded and dead. The combatant Azov also emphasizes that the commands of the Ukrainian military divisions value each of their members and, therefore, seek to accelerate the exchange of prisoners. As for Russian prisoners of war and separatists (from the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk), Bohdan claims that they are better off in Ukrainian captivity than at home: “They have more rights here, in prison, than in their own country. ”.
After recovering from his injuries, Bohdan wants to return to the front lines: “It is my duty to defend my country, its interests and its territorial integrity.”
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