Monday, Sept. 23, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Searching for excellent news abroad today looks as if a idiot’s errand. So when a heartwarming ending emerged to a horrifying story I heard in June in Kyiv, I wished to share it.
Name it the triumph of Mom Braveness, the wrestle of a mother to rescue her soldier son from captivity and torture inside Russia.
Imitating Hamas terrorists in Gaza, the Russian authorities gives little to no details about Ukrainian captives to their households, the Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross (generally known as the ICRC), or the Kyiv authorities. But, as we all know from exchanged Ukrainian prisoners, the Russians torture navy prisoners of conflict in a fashion paying homage to the Nazis.
After I sat down in a Kyiv restaurant with Milana Kompaniiets, a weary-looking, gray-haired physician who had fought full time for greater than two years for details about her 23-year-old son, Yurii Hulchuk, I believed I knew what to anticipate. The fact was even worse.
That actuality defines the character of Vladimir Putin, the cold-blooded killer and former KGB spy who cleverly manipulates Donald Trump and MAGA politicians. Putin doesn’t give a rattling in regards to the lives of his personal Russian troopers — not to mention about holding to Geneva Conference guidelines on remedy of Ukrainian prisoners of conflict like Kompaniiets’ son.
“My boy is a particular individual and a good-looking younger man,” Kompaniiets informed me. He first studied math, however switched to the school of Chinese language philology and deliberate to be a translator. Nonetheless, in fall 2021, Hulchuk determined to hitch the marines as a result of he felt a name to defend his nation, and signed up shortly earlier than the 2022 conflict began. He wound up within the Illich steelworks in Mariupol, among the many final of its surviving defenders.
When the Mariupol fighters lastly surrendered to the Russians in mid-April 2022, the ICRC promised them that they’d be handled based on worldwide legislation. That was the final time any Mariupol survivors noticed any Purple Cross officers. Ukrainian households are bitter that the group has not pressed more durable to overturn Russia’s refusal to grant them entry.
The Russians additionally refused any data, and even permission to enter their nation, to U.N. particular rapporteur Alice Jill Edwards, who was investigating torture and different merciless remedy of prisoners of conflict. Primarily based on interviews with returned prisoners in Ukraine, her report concluded that the Russian authorities had a coverage of degrading remedy — together with hunger, denial of medical assist, beatings, rape and worse.
After her son’s seize, Kompaniiets took time without work from her job to “work solely on my son.” She looked for data on-line, met with exchanged prisoners of conflict, spoke to the general public on the streets whereas holding an indication, talked to parliament members, and coordinated with the Ukrainian heart for prisoners of conflict.
Probably the most sadistic transfer by Putin’s authorities was to distribute pictures of the prisoners, alone or in teams — minus their names — to a wicked Russian navy blogger who shows them on-line with sarcastic feedback beneath.
“I had to take a look at all of the pictures. It was two of probably the most troublesome weeks of my life,” Kompaniiets mentioned. Lastly, she discovered a photograph along with her son within the background wanting frightened and starved. It was an indication that he may nonetheless be alive.
“I saved speaking to each exchanged Ukrainian prisoner,” Kompaniiets continued, as she sought any additional crumb of data. Lastly, in January, she met a freed nationwide guardsman who had shared a room along with her son.
“We talked every day for hours. I discovered the issues that I, as a mom, shouldn’t have identified,” she mentioned, eyes downward. Her son was crushed continuously, lastly to the purpose the place he might now not communicate.
“I feel it was a stroke after the beatings,” she mentioned. “My son was fluent in English, Chinese language, Polish, and was very verbal, and after this to not be capable to communicate …”
Kompaniiets put her head in her arms.
“They used electrical shock to the genitals, and his legs turned paralyzed. After I realized this, I might solely cry and shout.” She stopped for a second, then continued. “I by no means understood why Ronald Reagan known as the Soviet Union the ‘evil empire.’ Now all of us perceive this. In Russia, they carry the animal out of individuals. They need to eradicate all humanity.”
I’d add that that doesn’t apply to all Russians. However for czar-wannabe Putin, backed by his navy and far of the brainwashed public, decency and guidelines of legislation seem to haven’t any that means. Furthermore, people — whether or not Russian or Ukrainian — haven’t any worth to Putin apart from their use in strengthening his private energy.
But, Kompaniiets by no means stopped looking. And right here comes the excellent news. After Ukrainian forces invaded the Russian area of Kursk, they took many Russian conscript troopers prisoner. Final weekend, a few of these conscripts have been exchanged for Mariupol survivors.
Yurii Hulchuk lastly got here dwelling.
I haven’t been capable of attain his mom. However in a robust video taken proper after the prisoner trade, he’s seen strolling clumsily and searching vacant-eyed. He can’t communicate, however when a feminine soldier presents him a cellphone together with his mom on the opposite finish, he faucets out, “Mama is as lovely as at all times.”
In one other video, when he lastly, clumsily, is ready to hug his mother, Kompaniiets holds him shut and tells him: “We love you. With out you, we didn’t have a life.”
this video, I might solely consider all the opposite households of Ukrainian prisoners of conflict who’re desperately ready for data the Russian authorities refuses handy over. I additionally was reminded of the despair of Israeli households who’re denied data by Hamas about their relations who’re nonetheless held hostage, and who’ve been deserted by the Israeli authorities.
What’s most infuriating is that Putin can get away together with his conflict crimes. Regardless of Russia’s violation of core U.N. rules, his consultant sits on the Safety Council. The Russian strongman has already been charged on the Worldwide Prison Court docket with the conflict crime of kidnapping Ukrainian youngsters. The mistreatment and torture of prisoners of conflict needs to be added to the fees.
And any hypocritical U.S. politician who praises Putin (whereas damning Hamas) needs to be pressured to take a look at the pictures of tortured faces and useless our bodies that Kompaniiets was pressured to check simply to be taught if her son was alive.
Trudy Rubin is a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
