Untold Stories of Prisoners of War in Eastern Ukraine

Hromadske publishes untold stories of hundreds of prisoners in the Eastern Ukrainian war. The day after the Eastern Ukrainian ceasefire agreement, Minsk II was signed in February 2015, five Ukrainian servicemen were taken prisoner into the maximum-security correctional facility in Makiyivka, a large town on the separatist-controlled territory in Eastern Ukraine. Two were released after fifty days, one managed to escape, and two remain in captivity.

“Our two guys, Sasha and Sergiy, are still there,” says the wife of Oleksandr Korinkov. “As for today, it’s the 745th day. 745 days! It’s the third year.”

Communication between the soldiers and their families is sparse; phone calls became less frequent. However, after receiving a letter passed on from former jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, Sasha’s wife is confident that her husband is alive: “When we received those letters, I recognized my husband’s handwriting.”

“It’s very hard to realize that you’re unable to help one of your own. It’s very hard and terrifying… But we can’t give up. For their sake, we can’t give up.”

Watch Hromadske’s special report about the families of soldiers who remain imprisoned in Eastern Ukraine.