Photos show Ukrainian soldier before and after four months in Russian captivity – Observer

With disheveled hair and beard and arms folded across his chest, looking tired but with a slight smile on his face. In a photo taken at the Azovstal factory in May, Mykhailo Dyanov appears at the last stage of Ukrainian resistance at the port of Mariupol. A picture released on Monday shows a different man after months in Russian captivity.

Dyanov, 42, was among the recently released Ukrainians Prisoner of war exchange between Ukraine and Russia. He was one of the soldiers taken as a prisoner of war by the Russian forces after the fighting to secure the Azovstal complex. Images currently shared by various international media programs One before and one after the four months he was detained.

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In photographs taken after his release from Chernihiv hospital, Dianov appears very thin, with scars and bruises, his right arm mutilated. Since then, he was transferred to a military hospital in Kiev Need to get long treatment.

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He said the soldier wounded during the defense of Mariupol did not receive the necessary medical treatment while in captivity. Ukraine Pravda His sister, Alona Lavrushko. “He has a problem with his arm, maybe an ulcer. He needs surgery to insert a plate into the bone because 4 centimeters of bone is missing and needs to be fixed,” he explained.

Without anesthesia, without anything, they used rusty pliers to remove the object stuck in his hand”, he denounced.

At present the soldier cannot undergo surgery yet and must first regain weight after losing 30% of his normal weight. “The physical condition is bad, but Michael is very strong mentally. He is very happy to be back,” the sister added.

On Wednesday, Kiev and Moscow exchanged 271 prisoners of war, including former aide and Putin ally Viktor Medvetsuk, five Azovstal commanders and 10 foreign soldiers who fought alongside Ukrainian forces.

Medvetchuk, Azovstal commanders and 10 foreigners: Russia and Ukraine exchange prisoners

Since then, there has been a lack of conditions and false and misleading statements Torture. Shawn Later, 48, says he is subjected to daily stab wounds, electric shocks and beatings. “A man pointed a pistol at the back of my head, loaded it and said, ‘You’re going to die now’. I thought that was the end of me, and then he started laughing, saying he was joking…then he started whipping me,” recounted the British soldier. Aidan Aslin, 28, described being “treated worse than a dog” during the five months he spent in solitary confinement.

“I never want to hear an ABBA song again”, says British soldier of his torture at the hands of the Russians

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