When Yuri Fenyuk finally returned home, demoralized and weakened, after almost a year in Russian captivity, his loved ones begged him not to return to the front line in eastern Ukraine.
At 34, this Ukrainian soldier, a member of the Azov regiment, had already been in the army for eight years when he was wounded and then captured in the port city of Mariupol (South), scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the war that began in the Russian invasion in February 2022.
Did he really need to return to combat?
“Obviously, no one wanted me to come back, at least because I had already been injured and in captivity,” he told AFP, in the town of Lyman (East), about fifteen km from the front. Artillery fire echoes nearby.
“But it’s my decision. I am an adult,” continues the young man, for whom inaction only leads to defeat.
He believes he had no other choice as young soldiers were dying and his wartime skills could help save civilian lives.
“We have to continue, because this is not going to end so easily,” he adds, rejecting the idea that Russia will capitulate or enter into negotiations.
Like him, many Ukrainian soldiers are determined to continue this existential fight, even after two long years of great war and at a difficult time for Ukraine, stuck in defense for lack of ammunition and lacking new recruits.
Several Ukrainian soldiers interviewed by AFP in the industrial region of Donetsk, ravaged by war, have the same state of mind.
Yuri Feniouk was captured in May 2022 with around 2,500 other Ukrainian soldiers, notably from the Azov regiment, in Mariupol where the Ukrainian defenders entrenched in the Azovstal steel site resisted the deluge of Russian fire for weeks.
“Feeling of shame”
According to Azov, after several prisoner exchanges, around 900 of his fighters captured in Mariupol remain captive of the Russians.
The formation refused to specify how many of those released returned to the front, like Yuri Feniouk, fearing that these figures would hamper the continuation of exchanges.
Sviatoslav Siry, 28, was also captured after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered his troops holed up in bunkers under Azovstal to stop fighting.
“It was a terrible feeling. Above all, it’s a feeling of shame,” the young soldier told AFP, evoking the chaos of the fighting, faced with an enemy outnumbered and equipped with overwhelming firepower, during which he was injured.
“And finally, after all this hell, you must surrender to face the world’s worst enemy and one of the cruelest. Your destiny and your life depend 100% on your cruel enemy,” he summarizes.
Both ex-prisoners described horrific mistreatment in captivity, including regular beatings.
Yuri Feniouk recalls one of his deceased cellmates, who, to erase a tattoo linked to Azov that the jailers had ordered him to remove, had scratched his skin with shards of glass.
They were held in the notorious Olenivka prison in the occupied part of the Donetsk region, where more than 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war died during a bombing in July 2022.
“A burden”
kyiv and Moscow blame each other for the attack. The Russian embassy in London said the Azov fighters killed at Olenivka “deserved a humiliating death.”
But for Sviatoslav Siry, also a member of Azov, the decision to return to the front was inevitable, despite the horrors and fatigue of almost a year of captivity.
“After our release, we didn’t even say a single word about it. We only talked about when we would come back and how to rejoin the ranks as quickly as possible,” he told AFP.
Across eastern Ukraine, billboards encourage recruitment for Azov, who has become a legend for many in the country after fighting since 2014 against pro-Moscow forces in the east.
In kyiv, the town hall is decorated with a huge banner calling for the release of those still in captivity. Dozens of Ukrainians gather every week in the capital calling on authorities to push Russia to release remaining prisoners.
For the two former captives, the suffering of their comrades still in Russian captivity reinforced their desire to return to the front.
“Absolutely every day I think of everyone I was with and hope they come back soon. It’s a problem and a burden that never leaves you,” says Sviatoslav Siryi.
“There is no escape until all your brothers are free.”