a well known Ukrainian paramedic who was detained prisoner by Russian and separatist forces for three months after being captured in the southeastern city of Mariupol, accused her guards of psychological and physical torture during her captivity.
Yulia Paievska, 53, widely known in Ukraine by her nickname Taira, has achieved notoriety as a folk hero. She said her abuse began immediately after she was recognized at a checkpoint near Mariupol and taken prisoner, along with her driver, on March 16.
“For five days I didn’t eat and I practically didn’t drink,” Paievska told CNN on Tuesday, nearly three weeks after she was released in a June 17 prisoner exchange. The abuse, including beatings, she said, was “extreme” and “I didn’t stop for a minute in all these three months.”
From mid-March to mid-June, the couple were held in occupied territory at the Donetsk pre-trial detention center by a combination of forces from Russia and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, it said.
“They constantly tell you that you are a fascist, a Nazi,” he said, comparing the conditions to a gulag. She said she was told “it would be better if you were dead than to see what happens next.”
Frustrated that Paievska did not give her pro-Russian and Russian separatist captors an on-camera confession of alleged neo-Nazi connections, she said, “I was thrown into solitary confinement, a dungeon with no mattress, on a metal bunk.”
Paievska’s notoriety in Ukraine has grown since she rose to fame during the 2014 Maidan uprising, where she supported those protesting the then pro-Russian president as a volunteer doctor. From there, she headed east to the front line as Ukrainian troops fought separatist forces in the Donbas region, eventually officially joining the Ukrainian armed forces.
PROPAGANDA VIDEO
When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February this year, Paievska was in the southern city of Mariupol equipped with a body camera, filming hours of dramatic footage of the wounded arriving at the emergency room and the efforts to save them.
With Russian forces closing in, Paievska managed to hand over one of her memory cards to Associated Press journalists, who were among the last to escape the city. The card was hidden in a stamp, Paievska said. She told CNN that she destroyed another card with her teeth and dropped it as she approached the checkpoint where she and her driver were taken.
Forces at the checkpoint soon recognized her, Paievska said, and within days of her abduction she was forced for several days to sit in front of Russian television cameras for what would become a slick 47-minute propaganda video that He accuses her of using children as humans. shields and organ harvesting and she compares her to Hitler.
In the film, Paievska is led into an interrogation room, handcuffed and hooded, and forced to sit in a harsh, bright light while the narrator plays out the supposed danger she represents.
The video, broadcast by the state channel NTV, was published 12 days after Paievska’s capture. At that time, and during her detention, Paievska was not allowed to contact her husband, Vadim Puzanov.
“You watch too many American movies,” he says he was told. “There will be no call.”
Instead, Paievska says, she received a steady stream of lies boasting of non-existent Russian military successes in eastern Ukraine. Eventually, she and other detainees were able to piece together some of the reality of what was happening from various bits of information they collected.
When Paievska was arrested, she was told she could face the death penalty. But one day she was taken out of her cell and the possibility of a prisoner exchange was mentioned, which raised her hopes.
On June 17, the exchange occurred, and Paievska managed to call her husband for the first time in more than three months.
“I didn’t recognize her [voice] because I did not expect him to call me,” Puzanov said. Along with his daughter, the family was reunited at the hospital to which Ukrainian forces took Paievska, a moment Puzanov described as “the happiest event.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the news in his late-night video address, saying: “Taira is already home. And we will continue to work to free everyone else.”
‘RUTHLESS REGIME’
Paievska declined to say where the exchange took place or by whom she was exchanged. Since her abduction, Paievska, who was already slim and heavily tattooed, says she has lost 10 kilograms (more than 20 pounds) and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
She will not be returning to the front line anytime soon, she said, fearful of being a burden to the forces.
Instead, he is focusing on qualifying for the 2023 Invictus Games for injured veterans in swimming and archery. He suffered a hip injury exacerbated by work at the front and had both hip joints replaced.
Paievska blames the Kremlin’s powerful propaganda machine for fueling the Russian war effort and, like Ukraine’s leaders, says Ukraine needs more help from the West to defeat Russia.
“This is an absolutely ruthless regime that wants to take over the world,” he said. “They told me that the whole world just has to submit to Great Russia and: ‘This is your destiny. You have to accept, just stop resisting.'”
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