“I am a soldier; I was carrying out orders from the Ukrainian government.” In Russia, an “Azov” fighter was sentenced to 20 years; despite being tortured, he did not admit guilt
Source: Grati
Author: Tetiana Kozak
Junior Sergeant Oleksandr Maksymchuk, a prisoner of war and fighter with the Azov Brigade, testified in a Russian court about being tortured in the Taganrog pretrial detention center. After the verdict was announced, he was able to speak briefly with a reporter from the Russian publication “Mediazona.” Maksymchuk said he was tortured to force him to confess to a crime of which he was accused by FSB officials and the Rostov Region Prosecutor’s Office. His wife, Natalia Maksymchuk, is proud of his actions but fears for her husband’s future and is demanding his release through a prisoner exchange. The prisoner of war was sentenced to 20 years in a strict-regime penal colony. “Grati” tells the story of prisoner of war Oleksandr Maksymchuk.
Rejection
For serving in “Azov” in violation of international humanitarian law, Maksymchuk was charged with training for the purpose of terrorist activity under Article 205.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and with organizing and participating in a terrorist community under Part 2 of Article 205.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. During the trial, which took place at the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, he refused to admit his guilt.
“I consider myself an innocent person who has been subjected to criminal prosecution. I am a soldier; I was carrying out orders from the Ukrainian state. I have no regrets and do not repent of anything,” said 30-year-old Maksymchuk to a correspondent from the Russian publication “Mediazona,” who was allowed to attend the sentencing hearing.
Previous hearings, including the closing arguments, were held behind closed doors after journalists and human rights activists took an interest in the trial. The judge formally cited the need to ensure the safety of those involved in the proceedings and their relatives.
The proceedings took place via videoconference. The prisoner of war was not brought to the courtroom for the reading of the verdict. Maksymchuk told a journalist that he was tortured and beaten twice at Taganrog Pretrial Detention Center No. 2.
“They also subjected me to psychological and emotional pressure using special equipment, specifically portable stun guns. All of this was done with the aim of forcing me to recognize the Azov Regiment as a terrorist organization, which it is not, and I am confident that I will be able to prove this in the future,” he said.
Maksymchuk also reported that he had gone on a hunger strike.
“When I was in Taganrog, I deliberately went on a hunger strike so that I would have absolutely no connection to that institution. I remember from history class that ancient Roman emperors distributed bread to the plebeians and staged gladiatorial battles in the Colosseum to keep the people occupied, to prevent riots and all sorts of revolutions. And I realized that this wasn’t without reason. Because a hungry person is capable of anything. And that’s why I deliberately went on a hunger strike in Taganrog and objected, asking to postpone the video conference hearing to a later date. I was tortured again, beaten again, and went on hunger strike again. And they used every conceivable—and inconceivable—method of pressure against me.”
Maksymchuk went on to report the torture of his cellmate, Pavlo Semenko, an “Azov” serviceman named Pavlo Yuriyovych Semenko.
“There were two incidents that occurred in 2022, namely: the infliction of serious bodily harm on my friend and cellmate Pavlo Semenko, who was beaten during interrogation. He was diagnosed with a closed pneumothorax. He was taken to a hospital, where he received medical care. At the moment, I don’t know where he is. I hope he is in Ukraine and has been exchanged, and that he is doing well,” said the prisoner of war.
He also reported the torture of a Russian citizen named Sergei—whom “Gratam” has not yet been able to identify—who said “Glory to Ukraine” in his final statement in court.
“I know that methods of coercion were used against Sergei. He was tortured as well. I wasn’t there; I only heard him screaming and repeating ‘Glory to Russia’ many times, because earlier, in his final statement, he had repeated ‘Glory to Ukraine.’ I’m very grateful to him for that, for his principled civic stance. Despite the fact that he is a citizen of the Russian Federation, he supports my country in this situation; he is a true hero, and I respect him for that,” said the Ukrainian.
Ban on “Azov”
Azov Brigade Commander Denys Prokopenko, along with other commanders of the Mariupol garrison, in Lviv after returning from Turkey with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on July 8, 2023. Photo: Office of the President of Ukraine
In Russia, “Azov” is banned and included on Rosfinmonitoring’s list of terrorists and extremists.
“Although, to put it mildly, there are no grounds for this. Apart from those highlighted in the media of the Russian Federation. Specifically, a very small handful of people were singled out—people who, again, did not enjoy the general respect of the “Azov” unit and who, unfortunately, were found to have tattoos of a neo-Nazi, far-right nature—something the Azov high command was unaware of and in no way encouraged. And it condemns this in the strongest terms. “I am confident,” Maksymchuk explained his position on the matter to a journalist.
The Russian prosecution cites a ruling by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated August 2, 2022. According to that ruling, “Azov” is recognized as a terrorist organization, and its activities on Russian territory are prohibited. For those who founded the organization and its leaders, the law provides for criminal punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of 15 to 20 years; for rank-and-file members, the term is five to ten years.
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation based its decision, in particular, on the testimony of several expert propagandists. Among them was Alexander Dyukov, director of the “Historical Memory” Foundation, who presented to the court a study titled “Neonazism and Terrorism in the Ideology and Activities of the ‘Azov Movement’ in Ukraine.” Also among them was Marina Akhmedova, a Russian journalist and member of the Presidential Council on Human Rights, who showed video footage from Mariupol and Volnovakha featuring accounts from local residents who allegedly witnessed shootings and torture carried out by “Azov.” Among the experts who testified was Georgy Volkov, head of the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission (Public Monitoring Commissions exercise public oversight over the protection of human rights in places of detention). Georgy Volkov—who also spoke about “Azov’s” crimes and asked the court to recognize the regiment as a terrorist organization. Maxim Grigoriev, a member of the Russian Federation’s Public Chamber and director of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, made the same demand. On his organization’s YouTube channel, there are several videos in which he interviews Ukrainian prisoners of war as well as civilians from Mariupol. The video description states that Grigoriev is collecting testimony for the “International Public Tribunal on Ukraine.”
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office filed a lawsuit in May 2022 seeking to have “Azov” designated as a “terrorist” organization, but the court postponed the case for two months. In its ruling, the court noted that the ban on the organization’s activities “is subject to immediate enforcement.”
The ruling of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation mirrors a ruling by the “Supreme Court of the Donetsk People’s Republic” issued in 2016. In addition, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted Federal Law No. 395-FZ of July 31, 2023 “On the Application of the Provisions of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation in the Territories of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Luhansk People’s Republic, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and Kherson Oblast,” which, in particular, establishes that “crimes committed prior to September 30, 2022, against the interests of the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and the ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’ shall be deemed to have been committed against the interests of the Russian Federation. For the purposes of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, persons who held citizenship of the Donetsk People’s Republic or the Luhansk People’s Republic and committed the aforementioned crimes shall be regarded as citizens of the Russian Federation.”
Statements in Court
Maksymchuk’s case was filed in court in July 2024. At that time, he had already been held for several months at Pretrial Detention Center No. 5 in Rostov-on-Don. The trial lasted half a year, and during that time, the prisoner of war was repeatedly returned to the Taganrog detention center, where he was beaten and tortured. From there, he participated in the hearings via videoconference. To escape from Taganrog to Rostov-on-Don, Maksymchuk demanded that he be transported to court. He also insisted that an independent attorney represent his interests in court.
At the hearing on October 17, Maksymchuk, who participated via video conference from Taganrog Pretrial Detention Center No. 2, asked the court to call an ambulance for him. He complained of a headache and nausea—he suspected he had a concussion. He also wanted a doctor to examine the bruises on his forehead, under his eye, and on his left arm.
“Did you seek medical attention at the facility where you are being held in custody?” the human rights project “Support for Political Prisoners. “Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial.”
“I didn’t make a request because of a past incident where I had requested medical attention, but my requests weren’t documented by medical staff.”
“This falls outside the court’s jurisdiction; you have the right to seek medical assistance at the facility where you are being held in custody.”
Oleksandr Maksymchuk spoke out about the torture in court on November 19 during an open hearing—this time, he was brought into the courtroom. He also asked the court to conduct an investigation at Taganrog Pretrial Detention Center No. 2 into the use of unlawful interrogation methods against him: he was tortured with electric shocks, beaten with fists and feet as well as with water pipes, and suspended upside down. Maksymchuk reported that he lost consciousness several times during the abuse. He was pressured to admit guilt, express remorse, and waive his right to an independent attorney in favor of a court-appointed defense attorney.
As a result of the complaints, an investigation was later conducted at the Taganrog detention center, and Maksymchuk was briefly transferred to Pretrial Detention Center No. 5 in Rostov-on-Don.
On December 5, Judge Pavel Gubarev, who presided over the case alone, sentenced the 30-year-old Ukrainian soldier to 20 years in a maximum-security prison.
“Will you appeal, or would you rather be exchanged sooner?” Mediazona quotes the state prosecutor as asking before the verdict was announced. The prisoner of war replied that he would file an appeal.
“I also filed a motion with the honorable court requesting that the 62 days I spent there [in pretrial detention] during the trial be credited toward my sentence, citing the Constitution of the Russian Federation. But, unfortunately, my request was denied. I don’t understand why. But I’m sure the honorable court had more than valid reasons,” he told a Mediazona correspondent.
“I’ve been in prison for over 2.5 years now. I’ve gotten so used to it that I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a free person, walking down the street. I don’t know what people do out there. Having a phone, a laptop, a house, a dog… A family, finally. In fact, I don’t really have anything to lose,” Maksymchuk said in closing.
He wanted his statement to be published.
After the verdict, he was taken almost immediately to the Taganrog pretrial detention center. Maksymchuk didn’t even have time to file a motion to review the trial transcript.
Survived the terrorist attack in Olenivka
Like the rest of the defenders of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, Oleksandr Maksymchuk was taken prisoner in May 2022 on the orders of the Commander-in-Chief to save the lives of the personnel. Prior to that, the Ukrainian military—who had fought fierce battles for 82 days and held their positions in Russian-besieged Mariupol despite extremely limited resources—had called for an extraction procedure to be applied to them: to evacuate them to a third country—not to Russia or its allies, but to any country that could guarantee the prisoners’ safety.
The evacuation from the Azovstal plant was documented by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The prisoners of war were placed in Olenivska Colony No. 120, located in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast, in the village of Molodizhne, 15 kilometers from the front line.
On July 29, an explosion occurred on the colony’s grounds in Barracks No. 200—where 193 Azov prisoners had been transferred a few days earlier—killing at least 50 people. Maksymchuk was in that barracks, but he survived, though he was seriously wounded.
Ukraine immediately claimed that the Russians had carried out a terrorist attack. Russia accused Ukraine of shelling the prison camp with American HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems, a claim that was later found to be unsubstantiated. At the same time, Russian authorities did not allow any representatives of international organizations or an independent investigative team to access the site of the tragedy. Russian authorities have not yet provided any confirmed data on the exact number of fatalities.
Immediately after the attack, videos showing the aftermath of the explosion inside a barracks, as well as several interviews with the wounded, appeared on the propaganda pages of Russian military correspondents. Among those filmed was Maksymchuk. In the video, published on the day of the shelling, the prisoner of war is in a hospital, lying in bed, struggling to speak. A voice off-camera asks, “How was the extraction?” Maksymchuk responds with a faint smile and says, “It was like that.”
His wife, Natalia, who had managed to escape from besieged Mariupol with her family, saw this video and hoped that her husband, along with the other defenders of the Mariupol garrison, would soon be exchanged.
“It was a nightmare for me!” she tells “Gratam.” “Because the other guys [in the video] weren’t covered in blood, but when I saw my husband—at first I thought he was missing an arm because he was covered with a sheet and there was blood underneath it. He was lying on the sheet in a pool of blood. And then, when they started releasing more detailed information about what had happened to the guys—as I understand it, they were labeled according to the severity of their injuries—‘one’ was written on him in green antiseptic.” So I understand that his condition was critical after he was brought from the barracks. I didn’t know what his injuries were; I only saw this video.”
Natalia learned exactly what injuries he had sustained from a second video that the propagandists published on August 18. It’s a clip that’s a little over three minutes long. Oleksandr already looks better; he’s sitting up. A man off-camera claims that the “Azov” fighters were attacked by their own Ukrainian troops and asks why that happened. In response, Maksymchuk shows where the shrapnel hit: his thigh, groin, and head—one piece of shrapnel is still lodged in the back of his head. Later, he talks about one of his fallen comrades—providing full details about him.
“Most likely, he understood that his family would watch this, see it, and know. He knew it was important to me that I know what was happening to him. I realized he had severe injuries,” says Natalia, who saw the video right away.
After that, she only received news about her husband from those who had managed to return from captivity. For two years, he was held in Taganrog without any contact with his family, where he was abused and tortured. In May 2024, Natalia learned that her husband was being held in a pretrial detention center in Rostov-on-Don and that an investigation had been launched against him. In August, he was transferred back to Pretrial Detention Center No. 2 in Taganrog for several months. After he testified in court about being beaten, he was returned to Rostov.
Natalia knew about his refusal to confess to the crime Russia had charged him with even before he stated it in court, and she asked him to be careful.
“You’ve already been through so much,” she wrote to him in a letter that was successfully delivered to him at the Rostov pretrial detention center. “I want you to come home alive. I begged him. He promised me he’d take care of himself. He says, ‘I’ll be back anyway, and I’ll be careful.’”
“I’m proud of him, very proud, but I need my husband to come home alive and well,” the woman adds.
Natalia is an active member of the community of families of soldiers who were injured during the terrorist attack in Olenivka. They organize public rallies and awareness campaigns, calling on the international community and Ukrainian authorities to fulfill their promise and bring their loved ones home, and demanding justice for those killed and wounded while in Russian captivity.
“I don’t want my husband to be made into a hero posthumously. I don’t need that. I want my husband—yes, I’m proud of him—but I want him to come back to me with our child. I’m very proud of him, but I want him to be brought home, to be exchanged in the next round of prisoner swaps. Because his bravery deserves for him to be one of the first to come home,” says Natalia.
They have a son who is now five years old. On his last birthday, his father managed, despite everything, to send birthday wishes from captivity.
***
This article was produced with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands
Author: Tetiana Kozak
Junior Sergeant Oleksandr Maksymchuk, a prisoner of war and fighter with the Azov Brigade, testified in a Russian court about being tortured in the Taganrog pretrial detention center. After the verdict was announced, he was able to speak briefly with a reporter from the Russian publication “Mediazona.” Maksymchuk said he was tortured to force him to confess to a crime of which he was accused by FSB officials and the Rostov Region Prosecutor’s Office. His wife, Natalia Maksymchuk, is proud of his actions but fears for her husband’s future and is demanding his release through a prisoner exchange. The prisoner of war was sentenced to 20 years in a strict-regime penal colony. “Grati” tells the story of prisoner of war Oleksandr Maksymchuk.
Rejection
For serving in “Azov” in violation of international humanitarian law, Maksymchuk was charged with training for the purpose of terrorist activity under Article 205.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and with organizing and participating in a terrorist community under Part 2 of Article 205.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. During the trial, which took place at the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, he refused to admit his guilt.
“I consider myself an innocent person who has been subjected to criminal prosecution. I am a soldier; I was carrying out orders from the Ukrainian state. I have no regrets and do not repent of anything,” said 30-year-old Maksymchuk to a correspondent from the Russian publication “Mediazona,” who was allowed to attend the sentencing hearing.
Previous hearings, including the closing arguments, were held behind closed doors after journalists and human rights activists took an interest in the trial. The judge formally cited the need to ensure the safety of those involved in the proceedings and their relatives.
The proceedings took place via videoconference. The prisoner of war was not brought to the courtroom for the reading of the verdict. Maksymchuk told a journalist that he was tortured and beaten twice at Taganrog Pretrial Detention Center No. 2.
“They also subjected me to psychological and emotional pressure using special equipment, specifically portable stun guns. All of this was done with the aim of forcing me to recognize the Azov Regiment as a terrorist organization, which it is not, and I am confident that I will be able to prove this in the future,” he said.
Maksymchuk also reported that he had gone on a hunger strike.
“When I was in Taganrog, I deliberately went on a hunger strike so that I would have absolutely no connection to that institution. I remember from history class that ancient Roman emperors distributed bread to the plebeians and staged gladiatorial battles in the Colosseum to keep the people occupied, to prevent riots and all sorts of revolutions. And I realized that this wasn’t without reason. Because a hungry person is capable of anything. And that’s why I deliberately went on a hunger strike in Taganrog and objected, asking to postpone the video conference hearing to a later date. I was tortured again, beaten again, and went on hunger strike again. And they used every conceivable—and inconceivable—method of pressure against me.”
Maksymchuk went on to report the torture of his cellmate, Pavlo Semenko, an “Azov” serviceman named Pavlo Yuriyovych Semenko.
“There were two incidents that occurred in 2022, namely: the infliction of serious bodily harm on my friend and cellmate Pavlo Semenko, who was beaten during interrogation. He was diagnosed with a closed pneumothorax. He was taken to a hospital, where he received medical care. At the moment, I don’t know where he is. I hope he is in Ukraine and has been exchanged, and that he is doing well,” said the prisoner of war.
He also reported the torture of a Russian citizen named Sergei—whom “Gratam” has not yet been able to identify—who said “Glory to Ukraine” in his final statement in court.
“I know that methods of coercion were used against Sergei. He was tortured as well. I wasn’t there; I only heard him screaming and repeating ‘Glory to Russia’ many times, because earlier, in his final statement, he had repeated ‘Glory to Ukraine.’ I’m very grateful to him for that, for his principled civic stance. Despite the fact that he is a citizen of the Russian Federation, he supports my country in this situation; he is a true hero, and I respect him for that,” said the Ukrainian.
Ban on “Azov”
Azov Brigade Commander Denys Prokopenko, along with other commanders of the Mariupol garrison, in Lviv after returning from Turkey with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on July 8, 2023. Photo: Office of the President of Ukraine
In Russia, “Azov” is banned and included on Rosfinmonitoring’s list of terrorists and extremists.
“Although, to put it mildly, there are no grounds for this. Apart from those highlighted in the media of the Russian Federation. Specifically, a very small handful of people were singled out—people who, again, did not enjoy the general respect of the “Azov” unit and who, unfortunately, were found to have tattoos of a neo-Nazi, far-right nature—something the Azov high command was unaware of and in no way encouraged. And it condemns this in the strongest terms. “I am confident,” Maksymchuk explained his position on the matter to a journalist.
The Russian prosecution cites a ruling by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated August 2, 2022. According to that ruling, “Azov” is recognized as a terrorist organization, and its activities on Russian territory are prohibited. For those who founded the organization and its leaders, the law provides for criminal punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of 15 to 20 years; for rank-and-file members, the term is five to ten years.
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation based its decision, in particular, on the testimony of several expert propagandists. Among them was Alexander Dyukov, director of the “Historical Memory” Foundation, who presented to the court a study titled “Neonazism and Terrorism in the Ideology and Activities of the ‘Azov Movement’ in Ukraine.” Also among them was Marina Akhmedova, a Russian journalist and member of the Presidential Council on Human Rights, who showed video footage from Mariupol and Volnovakha featuring accounts from local residents who allegedly witnessed shootings and torture carried out by “Azov.” Among the experts who testified was Georgy Volkov, head of the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission (Public Monitoring Commissions exercise public oversight over the protection of human rights in places of detention). Georgy Volkov—who also spoke about “Azov’s” crimes and asked the court to recognize the regiment as a terrorist organization. Maxim Grigoriev, a member of the Russian Federation’s Public Chamber and director of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, made the same demand. On his organization’s YouTube channel, there are several videos in which he interviews Ukrainian prisoners of war as well as civilians from Mariupol. The video description states that Grigoriev is collecting testimony for the “International Public Tribunal on Ukraine.”
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office filed a lawsuit in May 2022 seeking to have “Azov” designated as a “terrorist” organization, but the court postponed the case for two months. In its ruling, the court noted that the ban on the organization’s activities “is subject to immediate enforcement.”
The ruling of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation mirrors a ruling by the “Supreme Court of the Donetsk People’s Republic” issued in 2016. In addition, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted Federal Law No. 395-FZ of July 31, 2023 “On the Application of the Provisions of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation in the Territories of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Luhansk People’s Republic, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and Kherson Oblast,” which, in particular, establishes that “crimes committed prior to September 30, 2022, against the interests of the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and the ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’ shall be deemed to have been committed against the interests of the Russian Federation. For the purposes of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, persons who held citizenship of the Donetsk People’s Republic or the Luhansk People’s Republic and committed the aforementioned crimes shall be regarded as citizens of the Russian Federation.”
Statements in Court
Maksymchuk’s case was filed in court in July 2024. At that time, he had already been held for several months at Pretrial Detention Center No. 5 in Rostov-on-Don. The trial lasted half a year, and during that time, the prisoner of war was repeatedly returned to the Taganrog detention center, where he was beaten and tortured. From there, he participated in the hearings via videoconference. To escape from Taganrog to Rostov-on-Don, Maksymchuk demanded that he be transported to court. He also insisted that an independent attorney represent his interests in court.
At the hearing on October 17, Maksymchuk, who participated via video conference from Taganrog Pretrial Detention Center No. 2, asked the court to call an ambulance for him. He complained of a headache and nausea—he suspected he had a concussion. He also wanted a doctor to examine the bruises on his forehead, under his eye, and on his left arm.
“Did you seek medical attention at the facility where you are being held in custody?” the human rights project “Support for Political Prisoners. “Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial.”
“I didn’t make a request because of a past incident where I had requested medical attention, but my requests weren’t documented by medical staff.”
“This falls outside the court’s jurisdiction; you have the right to seek medical assistance at the facility where you are being held in custody.”
Oleksandr Maksymchuk spoke out about the torture in court on November 19 during an open hearing—this time, he was brought into the courtroom. He also asked the court to conduct an investigation at Taganrog Pretrial Detention Center No. 2 into the use of unlawful interrogation methods against him: he was tortured with electric shocks, beaten with fists and feet as well as with water pipes, and suspended upside down. Maksymchuk reported that he lost consciousness several times during the abuse. He was pressured to admit guilt, express remorse, and waive his right to an independent attorney in favor of a court-appointed defense attorney.
As a result of the complaints, an investigation was later conducted at the Taganrog detention center, and Maksymchuk was briefly transferred to Pretrial Detention Center No. 5 in Rostov-on-Don.
On December 5, Judge Pavel Gubarev, who presided over the case alone, sentenced the 30-year-old Ukrainian soldier to 20 years in a maximum-security prison.
“Will you appeal, or would you rather be exchanged sooner?” Mediazona quotes the state prosecutor as asking before the verdict was announced. The prisoner of war replied that he would file an appeal.
“I also filed a motion with the honorable court requesting that the 62 days I spent there [in pretrial detention] during the trial be credited toward my sentence, citing the Constitution of the Russian Federation. But, unfortunately, my request was denied. I don’t understand why. But I’m sure the honorable court had more than valid reasons,” he told a Mediazona correspondent.
“I’ve been in prison for over 2.5 years now. I’ve gotten so used to it that I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a free person, walking down the street. I don’t know what people do out there. Having a phone, a laptop, a house, a dog… A family, finally. In fact, I don’t really have anything to lose,” Maksymchuk said in closing.
He wanted his statement to be published.
After the verdict, he was taken almost immediately to the Taganrog pretrial detention center. Maksymchuk didn’t even have time to file a motion to review the trial transcript.
Survived the terrorist attack in Olenivka
Like the rest of the defenders of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, Oleksandr Maksymchuk was taken prisoner in May 2022 on the orders of the Commander-in-Chief to save the lives of the personnel. Prior to that, the Ukrainian military—who had fought fierce battles for 82 days and held their positions in Russian-besieged Mariupol despite extremely limited resources—had called for an extraction procedure to be applied to them: to evacuate them to a third country—not to Russia or its allies, but to any country that could guarantee the prisoners’ safety.
The evacuation from the Azovstal plant was documented by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The prisoners of war were placed in Olenivska Colony No. 120, located in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast, in the village of Molodizhne, 15 kilometers from the front line.
On July 29, an explosion occurred on the colony’s grounds in Barracks No. 200—where 193 Azov prisoners had been transferred a few days earlier—killing at least 50 people. Maksymchuk was in that barracks, but he survived, though he was seriously wounded.
Ukraine immediately claimed that the Russians had carried out a terrorist attack. Russia accused Ukraine of shelling the prison camp with American HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems, a claim that was later found to be unsubstantiated. At the same time, Russian authorities did not allow any representatives of international organizations or an independent investigative team to access the site of the tragedy. Russian authorities have not yet provided any confirmed data on the exact number of fatalities.
Immediately after the attack, videos showing the aftermath of the explosion inside a barracks, as well as several interviews with the wounded, appeared on the propaganda pages of Russian military correspondents. Among those filmed was Maksymchuk. In the video, published on the day of the shelling, the prisoner of war is in a hospital, lying in bed, struggling to speak. A voice off-camera asks, “How was the extraction?” Maksymchuk responds with a faint smile and says, “It was like that.”
His wife, Natalia, who had managed to escape from besieged Mariupol with her family, saw this video and hoped that her husband, along with the other defenders of the Mariupol garrison, would soon be exchanged.
“It was a nightmare for me!” she tells “Gratam.” “Because the other guys [in the video] weren’t covered in blood, but when I saw my husband—at first I thought he was missing an arm because he was covered with a sheet and there was blood underneath it. He was lying on the sheet in a pool of blood. And then, when they started releasing more detailed information about what had happened to the guys—as I understand it, they were labeled according to the severity of their injuries—‘one’ was written on him in green antiseptic.” So I understand that his condition was critical after he was brought from the barracks. I didn’t know what his injuries were; I only saw this video.”
Natalia learned exactly what injuries he had sustained from a second video that the propagandists published on August 18. It’s a clip that’s a little over three minutes long. Oleksandr already looks better; he’s sitting up. A man off-camera claims that the “Azov” fighters were attacked by their own Ukrainian troops and asks why that happened. In response, Maksymchuk shows where the shrapnel hit: his thigh, groin, and head—one piece of shrapnel is still lodged in the back of his head. Later, he talks about one of his fallen comrades—providing full details about him.
“Most likely, he understood that his family would watch this, see it, and know. He knew it was important to me that I know what was happening to him. I realized he had severe injuries,” says Natalia, who saw the video right away.
After that, she only received news about her husband from those who had managed to return from captivity. For two years, he was held in Taganrog without any contact with his family, where he was abused and tortured. In May 2024, Natalia learned that her husband was being held in a pretrial detention center in Rostov-on-Don and that an investigation had been launched against him. In August, he was transferred back to Pretrial Detention Center No. 2 in Taganrog for several months. After he testified in court about being beaten, he was returned to Rostov.
Natalia knew about his refusal to confess to the crime Russia had charged him with even before he stated it in court, and she asked him to be careful.
“You’ve already been through so much,” she wrote to him in a letter that was successfully delivered to him at the Rostov pretrial detention center. “I want you to come home alive. I begged him. He promised me he’d take care of himself. He says, ‘I’ll be back anyway, and I’ll be careful.’”
“I’m proud of him, very proud, but I need my husband to come home alive and well,” the woman adds.
Natalia is an active member of the community of families of soldiers who were injured during the terrorist attack in Olenivka. They organize public rallies and awareness campaigns, calling on the international community and Ukrainian authorities to fulfill their promise and bring their loved ones home, and demanding justice for those killed and wounded while in Russian captivity.
“I don’t want my husband to be made into a hero posthumously. I don’t need that. I want my husband—yes, I’m proud of him—but I want him to come back to me with our child. I’m very proud of him, but I want him to be brought home, to be exchanged in the next round of prisoner swaps. Because his bravery deserves for him to be one of the first to come home,” says Natalia.
They have a son who is now five years old. On his last birthday, his father managed, despite everything, to send birthday wishes from captivity.
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This article was produced with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands
This is an automatic translation generated by DeepL.