"Liberators and protectors", according to one poster here:
A Prisoner of War Describes Captivity in Russia
"At Night, I Prayed I Wouldn't Survive to the Next Day"
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Oleksiy Anulya reported for military duty. Russian soldiers took him prisoner. How does one survive hunger, torture and rape? Here, a former prisoner of war tells his story.
Alexander Kauschanski in Ternopil, Ukraine • 24.06.2024, 09.58 Uhr"At one point, I imagined escaping from the prison. Not to return to Ukraine. It would have been enough to make it to the nearest village, hide in some farmyard and eat pig slop at night. Or at least be shot to death trying to climb over the fence, instead of dying this agonizingly slow death.”
It’s mid-January and Oleksiy Anulya is lying in Hospital N. 1 in Ternopil, located in western Ukraine. His right arm hangs in a sling. The 30-year-old is recovering from a shoulder operation on the trauma surgery ward. It is the 36th time in just over a year that Anulya has received treatment in a hospital.
When the soldier was released on New Year's Eve 2022 after almost 10 months as a Russian prisoner of war, he was emaciated to the point that he was difficult to recognize. He was missing teeth, the flesh on his legs was rotting and several bones were broken. A former kickboxing champion, Anulya’s muscles were gone. More than one year later, he is still struggling to recover.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the two countries have exchanged prisoners on more than 50 occasions. More than 3,000 Ukrainians have been released, including Oleksiy Anulya. Because he has provided such detailed accounts of his time in prison, Anluya has since become something of a media phenomenon in Ukraine, with millions of people having watched his interviews on YouTube.
On this evening, he will end up speaking for more than six hours – sitting on his hospital bed, lying down, snacking on chocolate pralines. Only once will he interrupt the conversation for a brief bathroom break.
Anulya says that he talks about his time in Russian captivity to make the injustices he experienced visible. And to remind the public of the more than 8,000 Ukrainians who are still locked away in Russian prisons. . . .
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-prisoner-of-war-describes-captivity-in-russia-at-night-i-prayed-i-wouldnt-survive-to-the-next-day-a-a2343696-f237-49cd-8c29-9f566b5e775e