During more than three years of war with invading Russian forces, Ukraine has witnessed the creation of the largest women’s movement in the country’s history.
Mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, aunts and fiancees have banded together by the thousands to find missing or imprisoned soldiers. The women have organized informal groups and associations that work with one another across the country.
Prisoner exchanges are strictly secretive. Journalists are never informed of the time and place of exchanges. Nor are the names and locations of hospitals that freed prisoners of war, or POWs, are taken to for medical exams after release made public.
Nevertheless, on this morning, several hundred civilians have gathered in the courtyard of a clinic in Chernihiv to await the arrival of a bus en route from the Russia-Ukraine border.
Nadia, a retiree from Khmelnytskyi, hasn’t missed a prisoner exchange in over a year. Her 41-year-old son Oleksandr Kololyuk disappeared on the front near Bakhmut in February 2023.
“I search and hope,” says Nadia, who holds several pictures in her hand.
Everyone here has photos of sons, husbands, fathers or fiances, and they all want to have them broadcast on TV or printed in the paper.
Families hope loved ones will be freed
Entire families seek the shade of the courtyard’s apple trees. They gather according to their loved ones’ army brigade or the number of the Russian prison where they are being held. The standard of the 36th Marine Brigade is easily recognizable from a distance. More than 1,300 members of the brigade were taken hostage in Mariupol in April 2022. Their families have been waiting for their release ever since.
During that time Olha Handzhala from the city of Uman has only been able to send her 34-year-old son Yevhen one single letter. She never received a reply. This is her fourth prisoner exchange.
“I come to support our soldiers. And to maybe meet someone that has seen my son in one of the camps… who can tell me how he is and where he’s at.”
Valentina Ocheretna from Zhmerynka is looking for her son Nazar, a 36-year-old who went missing in early April 2022. Valentina still hopes for the best, since soldiers released from Mariupol told her they had seen him in the camps.
“I reported that to the coordination office. They contacted a man that had seen him and could corroborate what I had heard. But Nazar is still registered as missing,” she bemoans.
Several dozen women who arrived together from the Sumy region by bus have positioned themselves directly in front of a police cordon. Behind it lies a separate courtyard where the prisoner transport buses are supposed to arrive.
Svitlana, the youngest of these women, holds up a placard with photos of her fiance Oleh Halushka’s tattoos. A National Guard serviceman from the 15th Operational Brigade, also known as the Kara-Dag Brigade, Halushka disappeared from the front in Zaporizhzhia a year ago.
“Maybe someone will recognize one of his tattoos,” she says.
The prisoners’ arrival is supposed to be a celebration. Representatives from the prisoner exchange coordination office patiently explain to those gathered how to greet soldiers, what to thank them for, what not to ask them, and how to avoid stress. But that doesn’t always work.
In the few meters between the bus and the clinic a thunderous waterfall of names, brigades and prisons are shouted out at the newly freed men who are also shown and given hands full of pictures.
Only a few of them stop to look, answer questions or talk to journalists.
“It’s difficult, there are so many faces,” smiles a 36-year-old marine named Yuriy, as he disappears into the hospital with a pile of photos.
Relatives of Ukrainian soldiers play an important role
Despite all of that, soldiers’ relatives and the coordination office think such meetings are important.
“There have been honest to goodness pilgrimages here since last August. Even if relatives don’t bring much with them, those returning home can see how much they are loved,” as Petro Yatsenko, a speaker for the coordination office, told DW.
It is relatives who identify soldiers seen in grainy Russian videos. And one of Ukraine’s largest Telegram channels for found and imprisoned soldiers has nearly 122,000 subscribers. Dozens of names and photos are added each day. The sooner a person can be identified, the sooner they can be released, explains Yatsenko.
In late May, UA Losses, a project that makes use of publicly available information, listed the names of more than 6,000 imprisoned Ukrainian soldiers. The coordination office says the number of unidentified POWs is shrinking daily as a result of relatives’ help.
Still, nearly 65,000 persons are currently labeled missing. Though most will never return home, none of their friends and relatives want to give up hope.
That is why coordination office speaker Yatsenko says it is so important for relatives to be present at POW exchanges: “They give people something to hold onto.”
‘I want to do good, be a ray of light’
Activists have a lot to keep them busy between exchanges, too — meeting with representatives from the coordination office, holding vigils and memorials, unveiling plaques and traveling to conferences.
“I want to do good and be a ray of light for families … to let them know they aren’t forgotten,” says Kateryna Muslova, the daughter of Oleg Muslov, a marine who was taken prisoner in Mariupol. Kateryna’s charitable trust Heart of Action is active in pursuing international lobby work on behalf of prisoners as well as helping families receive state benefits.
Ukraine’s prisoner exchange coordination office holds regular meetings with more than 150 civic organizations and private family initiatives.
Spokesman Yatsenko says, “We are thrilled when families get together and organize because it makes it easier for them to get answers to their questions.”
Still, cooperation isn’t always constructive. Yatsenko is critical of some groups. He says some fall for Russian provocation or scammers, passing along sensitive information or organizing demonstrations accusing the coordination office of not doing enough.
Says Yatsenko: “Every successful prisoner exchange always brings a wave of disappointment from those whose relatives have yet to be found or freed.”
This article was originally published in Ukrainian.
