How a Ukrainian Prisoner of war survived captivity

Hlib Stryzhko endured psychological torture and was denied medical treatment for a broken pelvis and jaw. Yet somehow, he made it home.

In a hospital bed in the Ukrainian city of Poltava, he tried to sit up.

The 25-year-old soldier’s pelvis was supported by metal scaffolding – one of his many injuries sustained while trying to defend Mariupol, nearly 500km to the south.

As his mother Olesya helped him he grimaced with pain, but seemed eager to share his story nevertheless.

“Turning my head, I saw that a tank was aimed at me,” he recalled.

“When a tank fires, there is no time between exit and arrival. It happens instantaneously. I saw a bright flash.”

He fell three storeys when the tank fired.

“I realised I could either shout and be helped or die under this rubble,” says Mr Stryzhko.

“Every cry was an extraordinary effort. After three to four screams, I heard the guys saying ‘we are here, we’ll help you’.”

Mr Stryzhko’s comrades saved his life and took him to a field hospital.

“There were around a dozen guys from different units,” he remembered. He was not, however, out of danger.

“The doctors arrived and told us that in order to save our life we will be passed to the Russians.”

Invading troops were taking more of Mariupol, and the soldier’s best chance of getting medical attention was with the enemy.

Meanwhile, in his hometown of Poltava, the church he has been involved with since childhood prayed for him.

Like many Ukrainian institutions, the city’s Assumption Cathedral has had to adapt to the war – boxes filled with humanitarian aid now fill its halls.

“I knew there were only two ways out of Mariupol: death or captivity,” says the city’s Archbishop Fedir, who still conducts services from the church’s imposing alter.

The Archbishop believed Mr Stryzhko wouldn’t surrender, but had no idea whether he was dead or alive.

That changed when the marine appeared with other Ukrainian prisoners on a social media post by Russian-backed separatists.

“I knew that God had performed a miracle,” says the archbishop. “He was in a difficult condition, with numerous fractures.”

Mr Stryzhko had suffered a broken pelvis and jaw, and had lost vision in one eye.

The archbishop was worried, but relieved to see Mr Stryzhko alive.

“God answered our prayers, and I was confident that we would be able to free him from captivity,” he said.

Archbishop Fedir says there are more marines from Poltava who went missing in Mariupol, which is now under Russian control after 80 days of siege.

 

Source: BBC