Two wives and a girlfriend of Ukrainian troops captured by Russian forces or unaccounted for after defending the Azovstal manufacturing facility in a prolonged siege advised CNN they’d little or no details about the whereabouts of their family members.
“I’ve not been in contact with my husband or acquired any details about him currently,” mentioned Anna Ivleva, the spouse of Anton, a marine who was severely wounded in Azovstal. “The final time we spoke was on April 13. After which his brothers-in-arms would ship me texts that he was nonetheless alive.”
Ivleva mentioned Ukrainian authorities officers had been in contact however added that there was “no data” on the place Azovstal fighters had been being stored and underneath what situations. She is holding out hope her husband is alive, even when in captivity.
“All of us — households, wives and moms of the marines, are sticking to one another, we’re at all times in contact with one another 24/7,” she mentioned. “We at all times trade any obtainable information, we’re like a household.”
The besieged Ukrainian port metropolis of Mariupol fell underneath full Russian management earlier this month with the give up of Azovstal, the metropolis’s final bastion of Ukrainian protection. It’s unclear what number of Ukrainian troops are actually in Russian custody, however the Russian army has claimed that over 2,000 Ukrainian servicemembers surrendered there. Russian state propaganda has demonized Azovstal defenders as “Nazis,” elevating severe considerations about how they could be handled in captivity.
A girl named Yana helped set up occasions in Kyiv in help of Azovstal fighters. Her boyfriend is a marine who was in Azovstal. She spoke on the situation of anonymity, citing safety considerations.
I’ve not heard from him or something about him,” she mentioned. “Final time we had been in contact was on Might 11.”
She mentioned the Ukrainian authorities had not supplied any data on the place her boyfriend could be.
“My boyfriend’s mom was contacted by the ICRC [the International Committee of the Red Cross], I can’t bear in mind when precisely,” she mentioned. “They solely advised her he was alive, that’s it.”
The ICRC has been concerned in registering combatants leaving the Azovstal plant since Might 17 – partly to assist prisoners of conflict keep up a correspondence with their households. The group has been working in Ukraine since 2014, when the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas area started.
One other spouse of an Azovstal defender, Tetiana, mentioned her husband managed to name her from an unknown quantity after the give up and mentioned a few of his comrades had been being held in a city in separatist-held Donetsk oblast. CNN agreed to not report her surname for a similar causes.
“His voice was calm and assured,” she mentioned. “He mentioned that the situations they had been being stored in had been OK. He mentioned it could be doable in the longer term that they’d be allowed to obtain some packages.”
Tetiana mentioned she spoke together with her husband for about 10 minutes, and that her husband mentioned that he would attempt to name once more.
“That is it, no extra calls or information,” she mentioned.
