'Abused, starved…': Ukraine officer returns home after 2 years in Russian captivity, refuses Russia's ‘sweet promises’

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ZMINA news that her daughter faced abuses and was beaten which she she got to know from her letters. “They were trying to lure my daughter to the Russian side with both sweet promises of a big salary and intimidation.

But she refused," the mother said.Her mother also revealed that Mariana suffered severe torture during captivity, including starvation, beatings, various abuses, which severely impacted her health, leading to chronic bronchitis. Speaking more on her daughter's condition, he mother said, “Mariana lost a lot of weight, her immune system weakened, her hair began to fall out, and her periods disappeared," as quoted by media reports.The report further added that, despite her mother's efforts to communicate, Mariana received no letters and remained unaware of her family's condition or whereabouts.Details on how her captivity enfolded, the report said, both Mariana and her younger sister were hiding from Russian bombardments within the Azovstal steelworks.

After civilians were evacuated, the sisters were separated in a Russian filtration camp. When Russians dicovered that Mariana was Ukrainian police officer, she was then transferred to the Donetsk pre-trial detention center.

She was later held in a POW camp in Olenivka and subsequently moved to prisons in Taganrog and Mariupol.In another video posted by Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, showed Mariana breaking down as she calls her mother.Meanwhile, the exchange of the 150 POWs in all was the fourth swap this year and the 52nd since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The United Arab Emirates said it helped negotiate this latest exchange.