11 July 2022 GMT https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-medic-yuliia-paievska-describes-captivity-5b6f6e727a0a1a2b90101640055c6b4b KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The captured Ukrainian doctor’s glasses had long been removed, and the face of the Russian walking past her was blurred. Yuliia Paievska knew only that her life was being traded for her own, and that she was leaving behind 21 women in a tiny three-by-six-meter (10-by-20-foot) prison cell that they had shared for an eternity. Her joy and relief were tempered by the feeling that she was abandoning them to an uncertain fate. Before she was captured, Paievska, known throughout Ukraine as Taira, had recorded more than 256 gigabytes of harrowing body camera footage showing her team’s efforts to rescue the wounded in the besieged city of Mariupol. He got the video to reporters from the Associated Press, the last international team in Mariupol, on a tiny data card. The journalists left the city on March 15 with the card embedded in a tampon, taking it through 15 Russian checkpoints. The next day, Taira was captured by pro-Russian forces. Three months passed before she emerged on June 17, gaunt and demure, her athlete’s body more than 10 kilograms (22 lb) lighter from lack of food and activity. She said the AP report showing her caring for Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, along with citizens of Mariupol, was critical to her release. She chooses her words carefully when discussing the day she was captured and is even more cautious when discussing the prison for fear of endangering the Ukrainians still there. But she is clear about the impact of the video released by the AP. “You have taken out this flash drive and thank you,” he told an AP team in Kyiv that included reporters in Mariupol. “Because of you, I could get out of this hell. Thanks to everyone involved in the exchange.” She still feels guilty about those she left behind and said she will do everything she can to help them. “It’s all I think about,” he said. “Every time I grab a cup of coffee or light a cigarette, my conscience hurts because they can’t.” Taira, 53, is one of thousands of Ukrainians believed to have been captured by Russian forces. The mayor of Mariupol recently said that 10,000 people from his city alone have disappeared either in captivity or while trying to escape. The Geneva Conventions single out doctors, military and civilian, for protection “in all circumstances. “ Taira is a plus-sized personality in Ukraine, famous for her medical training and instantly recognizable by her shock blonde hair and tattoos that surround both arms. The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced her release. Despite the weight loss and everything she has endured, she is still alive. He smokes constantly, lighting one cigarette after another as if trying to make up for the three months he’s had none. She speaks quietly, without malice, and her frequent smiles light up her face deep in her brown eyes. A retired military medic who suffered back and hip injuries long before the Russian invasion, Taira is also a member of Ukraine’s Invictus Games team. She had planned to compete this April in archery and swimming, and her 19-year-old daughter was allowed to compete in her place. Taira received the body cam in 2021 to film for a Netflix documentary series about inspirational figures produced by Britain’s Prince Harry, who founded the Invictus Games. But when Russian forces invaded in February, he trained the lens on war scenes. The camera was on when she stepped in to treat a wounded Russian soldier, whom she called “sunshine,” as she does with almost everyone who comes into her life. It recounted the death of a boy and the successful attempt to save his sister, who is now one of the many orphans of Mariupol. That day, she collapsed against a wall and cried. Reviewing the video, he said it was a rare loss of control. “If I kept crying, I wouldn’t have time to deal with the injured. So during the war, of course, I got a little tougher,” he said. “I shouldn’t have shown that I was falling apart. … We can grieve later.” The children weren’t the first or last she treated, she said. But it was part of a larger loss for Ukraine. “My heart bleeds when I think about it, when I remember how the city died. He died like a human being – it was painful,” he said. “It’s like when someone dies and you can’t do anything to help, in the same way.” WATCH: The moment Taira collapses as medical staff unsuccessfully try to save a boy’s life. (Julia Paevska via AP) Hours before Taira was captured, Russian airstrikes hit the Mariupol theater, the city’s main bomb shelter. Hundreds died. On the same day, the Poseidon pool, another bomb shelter, was also hit. Taira gathered a group of 20 people hiding in the basement of her hospital, mostly children, into a small yellow bus to take them away from Mariupol. The city center was on the verge of falling and Russian checkpoints blocked all roads leading out. Then the Russians saw her. “They recognized me. They left, called, came back,” he said. “As far as I can tell, they already had a plan.” He believes the children have made it to safety. He declined to divulge details about that day for reasons he said he could not fully explain. But she appeared five days later on a Russian news broadcast announcing her arrest, accusing her of trying to leave the city in disguise. In the video, Tyra looks groggy and her face is bruised. As she reads a prepared statement for her, an announcer taunts her as a Nazi. Inside the prison system, inmates were subjected to the same kind of propaganda, he said. They heard that Ukraine had fallen, that Parliament and the Cabinet had been dissolved, that the city of Kiev was under Russian control, that everyone in the government had left. “And a lot of people started to believe it. Have you seen how this happens under the influence of propaganda? People are starting to despair,” Taira said. “I did not believe it, for I know it is foolish to believe the enemy.” Every day, they were forced to sing the Russian national anthem — two, three times, sometimes 20 or 30 times if the guards didn’t like their behavior. He hates the anthem even more now, but talks about it with humor and disdain. “I found it an advantage because I had always wanted to learn to sing – then suddenly I had the time and a reason to practice,” she said. “And it turns out I can sing.” Her jailers in the Russian-controlled region of Donetsk forced her to confess to killing men, women, children. They then launched into the organ-trafficking accusations he found offensive in their absurdity. “Battlefield organs were seized. Do you have any idea how complicated this operation is?’ he asked, dismissing the claim with a short profanity. “Invented, a huge construct.” He admitted nothing. “I am terribly stubborn by nature. And if they accuse me of something I haven’t done, I won’t confess to anything. You can shoot me, but I won’t admit it,” he said. After endless, repetitive rotting weeks broken only by unsalted porridge with bacon, packets of reconstituted mashed potatoes, cabbage soup and some tinned fish, Taira found herself in the three-by-six-metre (10-by-20-foot) cell with 21 other women, 10 cots and very little else. They were held in a maximum security prison without trial and conviction. He would not go into detail about how they were treated, but said they had no information about their families, no toothbrushes, little chance to wash. Her health began to fail. “I’m not 20 years old anymore and this body can take less than it used to,” she said wistfully. “The treatment was very hard, very hard. … The women and I were all exhausted.” Taira’s experience is consistent with Russia’s repeated violations of international humanitarian law in its treatment of civilian detainees and prisoners of war, said Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties. “Prior to the large-scale invasion, Russia tried to hide this breach. They tried to pretend that they were not involved in this breach,” he said. “Now, Russia doesn’t care.” At one point, one of her jailers came to her and said he had seen a video of a Russian soldier being abused. He knew this was not possible and asked to see the video, but was refused. Now, looking at the image of her tenderly wrapping a Russian soldier in a blanket, she knows it was yet another lie. “This is the video, here. I really treated everyone like that, I brought them in, we stabilized them, we did whatever was necessary,” he said. At another point near the end of her captivity, someone took her outside for what she assumed was yet another pointless interrogation. Instead, there was a camera. “I was asked to make a video saying I’m fine, the food is fine, the conditions are fine,” he said. It was a lie, he added, but he saw no harm in it. “After this video, they told me, you might be traded.” Then she returned to her cell to wait. She had dreams of walking free that felt real. But she tried not to feel too much hope, so she wouldn’t be crushed if it didn’t happen. More time passed before she was finally allowed out, blindly walking past the Russian prisoner she was exchanged for. On a recent day in the Ukrainian capital, Taira headed to the Kiev archery range deep in an abandoned Soviet-era factory. She embraced her coach and other athletes there and then settled into training for the first time since the war. Her shots were accurately aimed at the paper target, hitting the bullseye. But she had to rely on a brace for her chronic injuries and tired quickly. She…
