Yesterday at 23:53
OLEKSANDR KALIN | UKRAINIAN FORMER PRISONER OF WAR
“We arrived to our position on the outskirts of the village. Our position was around a kilometer and a half away, there were trenches. There were four of us.”
Around midday on September 13, 2015, four fighters from the volunteer battalion ‘Horyn’ took their positions near the settlement of Luhanske in the Donetsk region. Russian hybrid forces bombarded their military post with mortar shelling. In that attack, three Ukrainian soldiers were killed.
OLEKSANDR KALIN | UKRAINIAN FORMER PRISONER OF WAR
“I was the only one left alive. I got out of the trench after they said they would throw grenades. When I got out, a Russian army officer promised me he wouldn’t shoot.”
Oleksandr Kalin says it was the darkest hours of his life.
OLEKSANDR KALIN | UKRAINIAN FORMER PRISONER OF WAR
“They asked me if I had any wishes. I said I wanted them to send my body back to the Ukrainian side if anything happened.”
That day, the Russian-led militant forces interrogated Oleksandr for the very first time.
OLEKSANDR KALIN | UKRAINIAN FORMER PRISONER OF WAR
“The first thing he asked me was if I wanted to smoke. He asked in Ukrainian. I didn’t answer because it was so unexpected. He asked if I was deaf or mute. I said that I didn’t expect to hear him speaking Ukrainian. He said he was from the Rivne region, but had been living in the Donbas for a long time, defending his homeland from Ukrainian fascists. I said I came to defend my homeland from separatists and Russian occupiers.. I didn’t feel well after saying it, but I said it anyway.”
The Russian-led forces held Oleksandr captive for 2 years, 3 months, and 2 weeks. He spent a third of this time in a crowded basement.
OLEKSANDR KALIN | UKRAINIAN FORMER PRISONER OF WAR
“The basement is the former archives building of the Ukrainian Security Service. There were iron shelves. They gave each of us a mattress, a pillow, and a blanket. That’s it. The space between the shelves was very small. There were around 30 of us there. They said that before I came, there were sometimes 50, 80, or even 100 people in one cell.”
Oleksandr was allowed to phone home just once while in captivity.
OLEKSANDR KALIN | UKRAINIAN FORMER PRISONER OF WAR
“When I called, my wife started crying. I told her not to cry as long as I was alive. I said that everything was fine and I would come home one day.”
Oleksandr was among the 73 Ukrainian prisoners who were released in late December 2017, in exchange for around 230 people who were captured by Ukrainian soldiers. It was the largest prisoner swap since the start of the war in 2014.
OLEKSANDR KALIN | UKRAINIAN FORMER PRISONER OF WAR
“For 4 hours, we sat and nervously and waited. We thought they would take us back. But then they exchanged us.”
During the Christmas holidays, volunteers took some of the men to a screening of ‘Cyborgs’, a film which depicts the fierce 2014-2015 battle for Donetsk International Airport.. The siege was dubbed “little Stalingrad” for the outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers, who held out against Russian-led forces for just over 240 days in total.
[OLEKSANDR KALIN | UKRAINIAN FORMER PRISONER OF WAR]
“It was hard for me to watch.. It would have been easier if I hadn’t served in the army. It was even harder because of the captivity. But the movie was good.”
Oleksandr also met the movie’s director Akhtem Seitablayev.
[AKHTEM SEYTABLAYEV | MOVIE DIRECTOR]
“On the one hand, it’s a tribute to those who fought and continue to fight. It’s for those who know almost nothing about the war or those who want to understand the pain, hopes, and dreams of the people on the front line.”
Reporting by Andriy Yakovyn
