“We of Azovstal we were treated differently. Maybe they respected us or maybe they were afraid, in any case they looked at us as fighters “, says Pavlo Pikovets, one of the 144 prisoners Ukrainians freed on 29 June. Among them there are 95 defenders of Azovstal and “17 border guards who heroically defended Mariupol“, we read accompanying the video testimony of the former prisoner, published by the Border Service, of which Pikovets is also a member.
“I would like to forget everything like it was a dream,” says Pikovets, who in the plant Azovstal from Mariupol arrived on April 15th. “They took me to our so-called hospital and provided me with medical help: they cleaned the wounds from the splinters and put plaster on me,” said the border guard, who remained in the steel mills until the surrender. Then the imprisonment, where – she reports – “I cannot say that we have suffered torture”.
Pikovets, photographed next to his wife, assures that he has never lost hope of being free: “I knew I had to return. And I knew I had to do it for my wife and my daughter, who were waiting for me”. The woman also confirms: “I waited a long time for it. Perhaps I have never prayed so much. Thank God that he made my husband come back.”
On June 29, military intelligence in Kiev announced the release of 144 Ukrainians as part of an exchange of prisoners. Among them are 95 defenders of the establishment Azovstal a Mariupol, 43 of them members of the Azov regiment. The released soldiers, aged between 19 and 65, are overwhelmingly injured: many have amputated limbs, some have lost sight or other senses. It was the largest exchange of prisoners since the beginning of the Russian invasion of February 24.