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With disheveled hair and beard and his arm tied to his chest, visibly tired, but with a slight smile on his face. This is how Mykhailo Dianov appeared in a photograph taken in May at the Azovstal factory, at the time the last Ukrainian point of resistance in the port city of Mariupol. An image released Monday shows a different man after months in Russian captivity.
Dianov, 42, was one of the Ukrainians freed in the latest prisoner-of-war exchange between Ukraine and Russia. After fighting to defend the Azovstal compound, he was one of the soldiers taken as prisoners of war by Russian forces. Images now shared by various international media show one before and one after the four months he was detained.
Left: Ukrainian Marine Mykhailo Dianov inside the Azovstal steel plant during the siege of Mariupol in May.
Right: Dianov in a Kyiv hospital after his release from Russian captivity in late September.
???? Olena Lavrushko/Dmytro ‘Orest’ Kozatskyi pic.twitter.com/C681jJPoxj
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) September 23, 2022
This is Mykhailo Dianov, a ????????? Mariupol defender who has just returned home after 4 months in Russian prison
“His physical condition is very difficult, but morally he is very strong, he is happy to have returned. He says: I walk and breathe clean and free air,” said the sisterhttps://t.co/ncBE2vnNHy pic.twitter.com/grmdiaiqDq
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) September 23, 2022
Ukrainian hero Mykhailo Dianov and his family.
Everything will be fine!#StopRussia #StandWithUkriane pic.twitter.com/0FuXb0w46m—olexander scherba??????? (@olex_scherba) September 24, 2022
In the photos, taken after his discharge from a hospital in Chernihiv, Dianov appears quite thin, with scars and bruises, with his right arm deformed. He has since been transferred to the kyiv military hospital, where you will have to receive long-term treatment.
Wounded during the defense of Mariupol, the soldier did not receive necessary medical treatment during his captivity, his sister, Alona Lavrushko, told Ukrainska Pravda. “He has a problem with his arm, there could be an abscess. He has to undergo surgery to put a plate on the bone, because there are 4 centimeters of bone missing and all that has to be corrected, ”she explained.
They removed the object lodged in his arm without anesthesia, with nothing, with rusty pliers, “he denounced.
For now, the soldier still cannot be operated on and needs to regain weight first, after having lost 30% of his normal weight. “The physical condition is serious, but mentally Mykhail is very strong. He is extremely happy to be back,” the sister added.
On Wednesday, kyiv and Moscow exchanged 271 prisoners of war, including former deputy and Putin ally Viktor Medvedchuk, five Azovstal commanders and 10 foreign soldiers who fought alongside Ukrainian forces.
Medvedchuk, Azovstal commanders and 10 foreigners: Russia and Ukraine exchange prisoners
Since then there have been complaints of lack of conditions, as well as mistreatment and torture. Shaun Pinner, 48, says he was subjected to daily stabbings, electric shocks and beatings. “A man pointed a gun at my neck, loaded it and told me ‘you’re going to die now.’ I thought it would be the end of me, that’s when he started laughing and said that he was joking… Then he started whipping me”, described the British soldier. Britain’s Aiden Aslin, 28, described being “treated worse than a dog” during the five months he spent in solitary confinement.
“I never want to listen to an ABBA song again”, says British soldier how he was tortured at the hands of the Russians
Source: Observadora
