- Hundreds of Azovstal fighters surrendered to Russian troops who took over Mariupol.
- Their families and loved ones are still unsure whether they are dead or alive.
- Denys Prokopenko’s wife says she has been “exhausted” by the wait for news.
For weeks, the world watched as Mariupol’s last defenders resisted Russian bombardment beneath the city’s massive Azovstal steel plant.
The epic battle came to represent Ukrainian resistance to Russian invasion.
However, more than a month after hundreds of Azovstal fighters surrendered to Russian troops who took over the besieged port, their families and loved ones are still unsure whether they are dead or alive.
Among them is Kateryna Prokopenko, the wife of Denys Prokopenko, the commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment — a battalion that led the units holed up in the Azovstal plant.
It was Prokopenko — a large bandage on his right arm — who announced on May 20 that Ukraine’s high command had ordered them to surrender to save his soldiers’ lives.
Kateryna told AFP that during their last conversation, her husband promised they “would see each other soon”.
“Last time I spoke to my husband, I told him he was like a Marvel hero but a real one,” the 27-year-old said.
Sergiy Volynsky, another officer from Azovstal, sent his family “a last text message” before surrendering, saying he would no longer be in touch, his sister Tatyana Kharko said.
Since then, they’ve had “not a word” from him.
“Absolutely nothing. I don’t know where he is, if he has been feed, if he has been tortured,” Kharko, 32, told AFP.
“There are reports in the Russian media that some guys were transferred to Moscow, others to elsewhere in Russia,” she added.
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