A Ukrainian police officer who spent two years in Russian prisoner-of-war camps has revealed how she was physically and psychologically tortured by her captors.
Mariana Checheliuk, 24, revealed photos of her legs covered in bruises which she says were inflicted by jailors in regular beatings.
She says she also suffered chronic bronchitis, back problems, kidney failures, weight loss, hair loss and long periods where her menstrual cycle stopped.
In a poem written for her mother while in detention, Ms Checheliuk said the ‘pain and agony’ were so bad she wanted to ‘wanted to end my life’.
She spoke of how she ‘trembled with fear’ at the ‘horror’ she experienced and witnessed and how ‘every scream and knock made my own name from my head disappear’.
The 24-year-old read the poem while travelling by train to be reunited with her mother.
Ms Checheliuk is among 75 prisoners of war who returned to Ukrainian-held territory on Friday morning following a swap.
She was captured in the early stages of Putin’s invasion when Russian soldiers stormed the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, where she and her younger sister Alina sought refuge.
The city, in southeastern Ukraine, has remained mostly under the grip of Kremlin forces since the siege in March 2022.
The 24-year-old was moved between Russian facilities in Donetsk, Yelenovka, Taganrog, Kamyshin and Mariupol.
When a green corridor was opened for civilians, Mariana was denied passage due to her role in the National Police of Ukraine.
She had only been working in the police service for about a year before Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Her father Vitalii told Mezha media outlet that after graduating the Kharkiv Police Academy his daughter began working as an investigator in Zhovtnevyi District of the city.
He said: ‘Mariana was a zoo volunteer, she loved dogs very much, before and after work she cooked dog food and fed street animals.
‘My younger daughter, Alina, was in the ninth grade when the invasion began.’
Her mother Nataliia told the ZMINA news outlet that Russian forces even tried to get her to defect.
‘They were trying to lure her to the Russian side with both sweet promises of a big salary and intimidation. But she refused,’ she said.
During her two years of captivity, Mariana was only allowed to talk to her family once, and sent just a handful of letters detailing her deteriorating health.
In footage of her reciting the poem she wrote during detention, she says: ‘I long to see you mother, to tell you how it was for me there.
‘How I yearned for your eyes, how I wanted to end my life. How I endured all the pain and agony, how I trembled with fear.
‘How every scream and knock made my own name from my head disappear. How I asked for His help, and He gave me strength every day.
‘How I was getting ready to leave, but it was not always me. No words do I have to convey all the pain. No faith do I have that everything will end. No hope that Ukraine will be saved.
‘Maybe I will come back to you mother. No! I will come back, hear? I will come at dawn in the morning. In heart, you will feel me near. I will shout that forever I am free. That I missed my father and home. Mom, I will always remember. This horror is called Russian captivity.’
Marina appeared frail and subdued as she got off the bus in Sumi. The Ukrainian PoWs included four civilians.
As they disembarked, they shouted joyfully and called their families to tell them they were home.
Some knelt and kissed the ground while many wrapped themselves in yellow-blue flags and hugged one another, breaking into tears. Many appeared emaciated and poorly dressed.
The exchange of 150 PoWs in total was the fourth swap this year and the 52nd since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
With the exchanges, including Friday’s, Ukraine has gotten back a total of 3,210 members of the Ukrainian military and civilians.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia have disclosed how many PoWs there are in all. A UN report says the majority of Ukrainian PoWs are subject to routine medical neglect, severe and systematic mistreatment, and even torture while in detention.
There have also been isolated reports of abuse of Russian soldiers, mostly during capture or transit to internment sites.
At least one-third of Ukrainians who returned home suffered ‘injuries, severe illnesses, and disabilities’.
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