Mariana Checheliuk, 24, was returned to Ukraine on Friday morning (Picture: Reuters)
This is the heart-wrenching moment a police officer stepped onto Ukrainian soil for the first time after two years in ‘filtration’ camps in Russia.
Mariana Checheliuk is among the 75 prisoners of war (PoWs) returned on several buses that drove into the northern Sumy region on Friday morning.
Her story – being captured in the Azovstal steelworks and then being tortured in Russia’s detention centres – is emblematic of the siege and fall of Mariupol.
The city, in the south-east Ukraine, had been encircled since the start of the first weeks of the invasion and is now mostly under the control of Kremlin forces.
The 24-year-old survived physical and mental torture at the hands of her captors, while being moved between Russian facilities in Donetsk, Yelenovka, Taganrog, Kamyshin and Mariupol.
In March 2022, as Russian soldiers tightened their grip on Mariupol, Mariana and her younger sister Alina sought refuge in the Azovstal bunkers, the last bastion for many trapped in the besieged city.
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When a green corridor was opened for civilians, Mariana was denied passage due to her role in the National Police of Ukraine.
She had only been working in the police service for about a year before Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Her father Vitalii told Mezha media outlet that after graduating the Kharkiv Police Academy his daughter began working as an investigator in Zhovtnevyi District of the city.
He said: ‘Mariana was a zoo volunteer, she loved dogs very much, before and after work she cooked dog food and fed street animals.
‘My younger daughter, Alina, was in the ninth grade when the invasion began.’
Mariana tearing up moments after the swap (Picture: REUTERS)
Mariana was starved, beaten, and subjected to other forms of abuse while being locked up in the Russian camps.
Due to the conditions, her health deteriorated. A respiratory disease and a sore throat progressed to a chronic form of bronchitis.
She lost a lot of weight, her immune system weakened, her hair even began to fall out, and her periods disappeared.
Her mother Nataliia told ZMINA news outlet that Russian forces even tried to get her to defect.
‘They were trying to lure her to the Russian side with both sweet promises of a big salary and intimidation. But she refused,’ she said.
Mariana was taken captive by Russian forces at Azovstal
During her two years of captivity, Mariana was only allowed to talk to her family once, and sent just a handful of letters detailing her deteriorating health.
A video of her on the bus to Sumi shows her reciting a poem she wrote during detention: ‘I long to see you mother, to tell you how it was for me there.
‘How I yearned for your eyes, how I wanted to end my life. How I endured all the pain and agony, how I trembled with fear.
‘How every scream and knock made my own name from my head disappear. How I asked for His help, and He gave me strength every day.
‘How I was getting ready to leave, but it was not always me. No words do I have to convey all the pain. No faith do I have that everything will end. No hope that Ukraine will be saved.
Mariana survived physical and mental torture
‘Maybe I will come back to you mother. No! I will come back, hear? I will come at dawn in the morning. In heart, you will feel me near. I will shout that forever I am free. That I missed my father and home. Mom, I will always remember. This horror is called Russian captivity.’
Marina looked almost numb as she got off the bus in Sumi. The Ukrainian PoWs included four civilians.
As they disembarked, they shouted joyfully and called their families to tell them they were home.
Some knelt and kissed the ground while many wrapped themselves in yellow-blue flags and hugged one another, breaking into tears. Many appeared emaciated and poorly dressed.
The exchange of the 150 PoWs in all was the fourth swap this year and the 52nd since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
With the exchanges, including Friday’s, Ukraine has gotten back a total of 3,210 members of the Ukrainian military and civilians.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia have disclosed how many PoWs there are in all. A UN report says the majority of Ukrainian PoWs are subject to routine medical neglect, severe and systematic mistreatment, and even torture while in detention.
There have also been isolated reports of abuse of Russian soldiers, mostly during capture or transit to internment sites.
At least one-third of Ukrainians who returned home suffered ‘injuries, severe illnesses, and disabilities’.
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