{"id":414769,"date":"2019-09-23T16:30:59","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T13:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uatv.ua\/free-last-interview-ex-kremlin-prisoner-volodymyr-balukh\/"},"modified":"2019-09-23T16:30:59","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T13:30:59","slug":"free-last-interview-ex-kremlin-prisoner-volodymyr-balukh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uatv.ua\/en\/free-last-interview-ex-kremlin-prisoner-volodymyr-balukh\/","title":{"rendered":"Free at Last: Interview with Ex-Kremlin Prisoner Volodymyr Balukh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/14aXU3I5beQ\" width=\"652\" height=\"367\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center>Our UATV film crew met with freed political prisoner Volodymyr Balukh outside the Feofaniia Clinical Hospital in Kyiv. Journalists are not allowed on the territory of the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This side of my face is numb after a visit to the dentist,&#8221; Balukh said.<\/p>\n<p>Balukh apologizes for his appearance. He is wearing a vest he wore in prison because he&#8217;s had no time to buy warm clothes. In the Crimean pre-trial detention center, it was given to him by released political prisoner Akhtem Chiygoz. It&#8217;s the vest Balukh wore at his first press conference after his release.<\/p>\n<p>Balukh said that he didn&#8217;t want to recall the horrors of his detention, but he did open up about what was worrying him now.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have problems with my stomach. There are problems with my spine and teeth. I suffer from headaches. Well, and most of all, I have to consult an ear, nose and throat specialist because of the consequences of torture,&#8221; Balukh said.<\/p>\n<p>The main thing now is that the Russian prison is behind him. He is not going to live with feelings of resentment. During his imprisonment, he understood and reevaluated many things.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Three days before the prisoner swap, I read the words of Confucius &#8211; If you hate a person, then you&#8217;re defeated by them. Three years ago, I would have argued with Confucius, and with the veracity of this phrase. Now I won&#8217;t. The human feeling of hatred has left me forever. Without hate, you better understand the nature of your enemy&#8217;s actions,&#8221; Balukh said.<\/p>\n<p>Balukh is not aloof from public life and is actively interested in Ukraine&#8217;s politics.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The country became completely different. Believe me. I see the changes that occurred in the minds of our people during the years of the war and in the struggle for independence. There is so much Ukrainian language everywhere! Just being among people in the metro, public transport &#8230; I had not heard so much even three years ago,&#8221; Balukh said.<\/p>\n<p>Balukh felt these changes in the first minutes after his release. Ukrainians greeted the political prisoners at Boryspil airport as though they were relatives.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If I say my emotions were ordinary &#8211; you won&#8217;t believe me. When I stepped off the plane, I did not expect to see my mother, given her state of health. I forgot about everything in the world &#8211; about politeness, the need to approach the president, to thank him for the fact that we were released and returned home,&#8221; Balukh said.<\/p>\n<p>However, Balukh does not yet have a complete sense of being home, since Russia is still occupying his native Crimea.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At this moment, I am a free person living in a free country. But I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;m home. That is, I&#8217;m at home, of course. But I will feel completely free when I raise the Ukrainian flag again in Crimea. When we will mark Taras Shevchenko&#8217;s birthday in embroidered shirts, and when we will recite his poems, sing our anthem, and hear our Cossack march there,&#8221; Balukh said.<\/p>\n<p>Today it&#8217;s important for Balukh to be useful to his country, and to share his experience.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want my experience to help Ukraine better understand the enemy and defeat it. Honestly, I really want to help in the development of the state,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Balukh promises to return to the Crimea, but only to a Ukrainian Crimea, liberated from occupiers. He already imagines how this will happen.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course there will have to be a tank, despite my love for peace. It is better to do it without bloodshed. You can put flowers in the barrels of guns. However, weapons and gunpowder should always be kept dry,&#8221; Balukh said.<\/p>\n<p>For now, he wants to move his mother and son closer to himself. They are still living in the annexed territory.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It will be hard for Mom to move. My father is buried there. I have not been there for a long time. She has not yet completely agreed to move, but she already understands that this will happen. I need her, and she needs me,&#8221; Balukh said.<\/p>\n<p>Balukh will be able to implement his plan in the future. Right now he needs to undergo a full rehabilitation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I will stay in the hospital until the end of September. The rehabilitation process may drag on a bit. I need to recover,&#8221; Balukh said.<\/p>\n<p>He needs the strength to fight for the release the rest of Ukraine&#8217;s political prisoners in Russia and bring them home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our UATV film crew met with freed political prisoner Volodymyr Balukh outside &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":414770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,55,44509],"tags":[36961],"sources":[],"class_list":["post-414769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","category-ukraine-en","category-11473-ukraine-en-news-en-6","tag-russian-aggression"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Free at Last: Interview with Ex-Kremlin Prisoner Volodymyr Balukh - 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