They looked at them like soldiers: a border guard from Azovstal told about his stay in captivity in the Russian Federation
Border guard Pavlo Pikovets from Azovstal told his story of returning from Russian captivity.
The man said that on April 15 he reached Azovstal in Mariupol, where he was given first aid. He stayed there for more than a month together with other Ukrainian defenders.
– They put a plaster cast on me there and treated the wounds that were there, and took out the fragments. Then I was already in Azovstal wounded until I left on May 17, – he said.
According to the border guard, he wants to forget being in captivity like a dream. However, even in difficult moments, hope did not leave Pavel, because he knew that his wife and daughter were waiting for him at home.
– I want to forget it all like a dream. I will not say that there was any torture. Those who were from Azovstal were treated somehow differently. I don’t know whether they respected or feared. But they looked at us as soldiers. There was hope, there was always hope. I knew that I had to return and I knew for whom: for my wife, for my daughter. They were waiting for me and I had to return, – Pavlo said.
Note that on June 29, the largest exchange of prisoners since the beginning of the war took place. 144 Ukrainian soldiers were released from Russian captivity, including 95 defenders of Mariupol and Azovstal.
Most of the Ukrainian defenders who returned home were seriously wounded.
