Themes by tag: occupation
Former Kherson mayor Volodymyr Mykolaienko joined Ukraine’s territorial defense forces on the first day of russia’s full-scale invasion. When russian troops occupied the southern city in early March 2022, the 62-year-old former official went underground. He also took part in public rallies against the occupation, joining thousands of Kherson residents who defied russian forces. The largest demonstration, on March 13, 2022, drew more than 10,000 people into the streets.
In April that year, russian forces abducted Mykolaienko. He was held for more than two weeks at a police station in Kherson that the russian military had converted into a makeshift detention and torture site. According to accounts of his captivity, he was subjected to repeated beatings, interrogations, and abuse.
From Kherson, Mykolaienko was transferred to occupied Sevastopol and later moved twice more between detention facilities. He returned home on Aug. 24, 2025, as part of another prisoner exchange. Before that, he had twice refused to be included in swaps, opting instead to give his place to another captive who was gravely ill.
Mykolaienko is still recovering from the physical and psychological toll of his imprisonment. Even so, he has already resumed efforts to help secure the release of other Ukrainians held in russian captivity.
He can be reached for online or in-person meetings in Kherson by prior arrangement.
Azat Azatian has been uprooted three times in his life. As a child, he left Armenia with his family. In 2014, he fled the russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region. And in 2022, he once again found himself under occupation, this time in Berdiansk, in the Zaporizhia region.
When russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Azat began volunteering in Berdiansk. He brought food to people stranded for hours at checkpoints and helped civilians evacuate to Ukrainian-controlled territory. That work drew the attention of russian forces. Azat was abducted, held in captivity for 43 days, and subjected to torture. He later said that thoughts of his wife and three children were what allowed him to endure the ordeal.
After managing to leave the occupied territory and undergo medical treatment, Azat chose not to retreat into private life. Instead, he returned to helping others. He went on to open 11 assistance centers for displaced people, providing support to those who, like him, had lost their homes and sense of security.
In 2025, alongside other civilians who had survived captivity, Azat co-founded the Way of the Freeman rehabilitation center in Zaporizhia. The center focuses on people who endured detention and abuse, offering free psychological counseling, legal support, and physical recovery sessions.
Azat Azatian is available to speak with people seeking support both online and in person in Zaporizhia, by prior arrangement.
At 18, she has already endured what many adults never face. When russian forces seized Oleshky in Ukraine’s Kherson region in 2022, she was just fourteen. Her family survived the first months of the occupation in the basement of their home – without electricity, gas, or heat.
This week, Liza boarded a plane for the first time and traveled to the Netherlands to address the 24th session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). She spoke about what it means to grow up under russian control and the toll the war continues to take on children in occupied areas.
“I am not standing here today to elicit sympathy,” she said in her remarks. “I am here to be heard, so that people know what is happening to children in the occupied territories right now.”
Liza now lives in Kyiv, where she is studying psychology and working to help support her mother and younger sister. Still, her thoughts often drift back to Oleshky. She dreams of her neighborhood almost every night. Specialists from the Voices of Children Foundation are working with her to help her process those memories and begin to heal.
Journalists can arrange interviews with Liza in Kyiv by prior request.
Vadym Shevchenko was living with his parents in Polohy, a city in the Zaporizhia region, when russian forces seized it in early March 2022. As explosions shook their neighborhood, the family sheltered in the basement of their home, hoping the fighting would pass.
Just two weeks later, on March 15, 2022, the 25-year-old and a neighbor attempted to flee the occupied city. According to the woman who was with him, armed men in uniforms of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic stopped their car at the final checkpoint and pulled Vadym out. His mother, Olena, believes his lifelong burn scars on his hands led the occupiers to mistakenly suspect he was a soldier.
He was first detained in Melitopol and later transferred to facilities in Donetsk and Olenivka. Today, he is being held in a penal colony in Mordovia, russia. Olena sends letters through the International Committee of the Red Cross and has received two replies from her son.
She has also learned that he has lost about 30 kilograms during his imprisonment.
Determined to help others facing hardship, Olena now volunteers with the charity “World. Ukraine. Polohy,” supporting families in frontline communities with food assistance.
Interviews with Olena can be arranged in Zaporizhia, in Kyiv, or remotely.
Ivan Zabavskyi, 29, was born in Tavilzhanka, a village in the Kharkiv oblast located just 20 kilometers from the russian border. Before the full-scale invasion, he moved to Kharkiv for work.
When russian forces seized part of the Kharkiv oblast, Tavilzhanka, where Ivan’s mother, Maryna, remained, was occupied. In September 2022, Ukrainian troops liberated the Kharkiv oblast, placing the village on the front line. Ivan lost contact with his mother. Despite his relatives’ pleas, he cycled back to Tavilzhanka to rescue her. During the occupation, Maryna was forced to bury her older sister, who was killed by shelling. Just one day before Ivan set out to save her, Maryna moved to another village, causing them to miss each other.
Maryna later learned that russian soldiers had kidnapped her son and taken him to russia. Ivan was accused of spying for Ukraine. In January 2025, a court in St. Petersburg sentenced Ivan to 11 years in a strict-regime penal colony. In June 2025, the Second Court of Appeal in St. Petersburg upheld the sentence, leaving it unchanged.
Ivan’s mother now frequently attends peaceful rallies organized by the NGO “Civilians in Captivity”.
Journalists can speak with Maryna in the Kharkiv oblast, in Kyiv, or online by prior arrangement.
Svitlana Matsiuta is an artist from Kherson. For the past 20 years, she has worked as an assistant set designer in a theater.
She experienced the full-scale invasion in her hometown. During the occupation, Svitlana and her son avoided leaving home out of fear of russian soldiers.
Despite financial hardship, she rejected all offers to work in the theater under russian control. In March 2022, reports began circulating in media and social networks claiming that wild geese had “downed” an enemy military plane. Inspired by this story, Svitlana created her own toy combat geese.
These toys symbolize Kherson’s unbreakable spirit and resistance.
Svitlana says the combat geese are especially popular among Kherson residents who have relocated to other parts of Ukraine or abroad. She has received orders from the U.S., the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy.
In addition to geese, the artist makes roosters inspired by the folk art of Maria Prymachenko and Polina Raiko. Creating these toys helps Svitlana distract herself from the shelling and keeps alive her dream of victory and the liberation of the rest of the Kherson oblast.
Svitlana Matsiuta is available for interviews online or in person in Kherson, by prior arrangement.
Leonid Kondratskyi is 66 years old. He is a resident of Nova Kakhovka, a town in the Kherson oblast that russian forces occupied on the first day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Prior to the war, Leonid was a pensioner who worked as the deputy head of the municipal guard for the Nova Kakhovka town council. During the occupation, he provided assistance to civilians in Beryslav, a nearby town.
The russians detained Leonid several times. On October 7, 2022, russian soldiers came to his home in Nova Kakhovka, took him away, and transported him to an unknown location. It was later revealed that Leonid had been taken to Crimea. He is currently being held in a pretrial detention center (SIZO) in Kamyshin, a village in the Volgograd region of russia.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has confirmed that Leonid is being held captive. In total, he has been held captive for over three years.
By prior arrangement, journalists can speak with Leonid’s daughter, Iryna, online.
Oleksii Polukhin is a resident of Kherson and an open representative of the LGBTQ+ community. In the first days of the russian occupation, the 21-year-old Oleksii joined the resistance movement in Kherson and began establishing contact with the Security Service of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and intelligence units.
By May 2022, Oleksii was gathering information in the city that was crucial for Ukrainian special services. On May 9, during one of his missions, he encountered a new enemy checkpoint. He is certain someone had informed the russians about his activities, as they were already waiting for him at the checkpoint. The occupiers took his phone and passport and forced him to undress. They then blindfolded him, put him in a car, and drove him around the city for several hours before taking him to a pre-trial detention center (SIZO), where interrogations continued.
When the occupiers learned that Oleksii was queer, they forced him to wear a dress. He was denied showers, prohibited from going outside, and was provided with no medical or legal assistance. While his captors did not use physical violence, they subjected him to constant psychological pressure. Oleksii was released after two months of this psychological torture. Despite this, he remained in Kherson for a long time afterward and only left his hometown after its liberation. Oleksii is currently receiving psychological support and continues to volunteer in support of the Ukrainian military.
Oleksii Polukhin is available for interviews, both online and in person in Lviv, by prior arrangement.
Background: Kherson was occupied by russian forces at the beginning of the full-scale invasion (March 1, 2022). The Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the city from russian troops on November 11, 2022. The occupiers continue to shell the city regularly.
A memorial event titled “Wounds of Bucha’s Soil” will be held in Kyiv on November 7 to honor the tragedy of Ukraine’s hero cities, Bucha and Irpin, and the surrounding Bucha district, which endured some of the most brutal fighting in the spring of 2022. Once at the heart of russia’s assault on the Kyiv region, Bucha became a lasting symbol of the Ukrainian people’s strength and resilience. In the early weeks of the full-scale invasion, local defenders halted the enemy’s advance toward the capital, blocking armored columns on the outskirts of the city. After liberation, horrific images from Yablunska Street exposed the scale of atrocities committed by russian forces, turning Bucha into a global emblem of resistance and remembrance.
The event will revisit those events through the personal stories documented in journalist Olga Vorobyova’s books “Voices of Memory: Bucha – City of Heroes” and “Unconquered Irpin.” Attendees will hear first-hand accounts, testimonies from families of the fallen, and memories of witnesses who lived through the occupation. Organizers say the gathering will serve as a living memorial, a space for reflection, remembrance, and tribute to Ukrainians who sacrificed their lives for freedom.
Speakers will include:
– Nataliia Verbova, widow of Territorial Defense member Andrii Verbovyi, who was tortured to death by occupying forces;
– Olha Vorobiova, author of Voices of Memory: Bucha – City of Heroes and Unconquered Irpin;
– Kostiantyn Kukushkin, coordinator of the book publications;
– Liudmyla Humeniuk, mother of soldier Roman Shymanskyi, who died on February 25, 2022, during the demolition of the Hostomel Bridge over the Irpin River to stop an enemy convoy bound for Kyiv;
– Oleksandr Dubchak, the combat engineer who destroyed the Hostomel Bridge;
– Andrii Halavin, abbot of Church of St. Andrew the First-Called in Bucha, who oversaw the burial of the city’s victims;
– Dmytro Hapchenko, administrator of the Bucha City Council;– Yurii Savchuk, Director General of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in World War II and head of the museum’s expedition to the liberated Kyiv region in April 2022.
The program will feature documentary footage and photographs depicting the aftermath of Bucha’s occupation and the surrounding communities.
Journalists are required to register in advance to attend the event.
Oleksandr Yarovyi, 22, worked as a salesman at a hardware store in Dymer, near the village of Kozarovychi. [Kozarovychi, located in the Kyiv oblast, was occupied by russian forces at the start of the full-scale invasion.] The young man lived with his grandparents. When the war began, Oleksandr used a work vehicle to evacuate construction and hardware goods from the store. He also delivered food and transported medicine to the hospital.
On March 2, 2022, Oleksandr was on a Viber call with his mother. According to her, Oleksandr was at home with friends. The next morning, a neighbor called the woman and reported that russian soldiers had arrived. The soldiers interrogated the young men, simulated executions, threw Oleksandr into a basement, and beat him in an attempt to extract a confession. They later took everyone’s phones and left. Fifteen minutes later, they returned, ordered Oleksandr to raise his hands. They took the young man with them and ransacked the house.
Oleksandr’s mother conducted her own investigation to find out where her son was taken. She discovered that he was first held in a warehouse in Kozarovychi and then in Dymer, where the russians held everyone they kidnapped from the surrounding villages. On March 10, Oleksandr was taken to Belarus and then to russia, specifically the city of Novozybkov. In 2023, he was transferred to the russian settlement of Pakino, where he remains detained to this day.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has confirmed that Oleksandr is being held captive. In total, the young man has been held for three years and eight months. During this time, he has only received one short letter: “I am alive, healthy, and fine.” His mother now participates in peaceful rallies with other families whose loved ones are in russian captivity.
By prior arrangement, journalists can speak with Oleksandr’s mother, Inna, in Kyiv or the Kyiv oblast.
