As Russian bombs continue to fall on Ukraine, it's time for the first war stories.
“It was getting worse and worse, harder and harder.
We held the defense as long as possible,” Ukrainian soldier Vladyslav Jaïvoronok, who took part in the battle of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, told AFP, a symbol of fierce Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. .
Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24: within days, Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov, was surrounded.
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Vladyslav and his comrades then took up positions in the huge and labyrinthine complex of Azovstal to continue fighting.
Under constant bombardment, he settled into a half-ruined bunker, going out during the day to perform his duties as a drone operator.
Hit by an anti-tank missile
"The whole area was littered with pieces of buildings" and the soldiers were constantly short of water, food and ammunition, the young man recalls as passers-by in central kyiv, where life has resumed, stare at the empty leg of his brown shorts.
Despite the rapidly deteriorating situation, the soldiers kept their spirits up, says Vladyslav: “The last days I was anticipating a kind of last battle.
We were expecting it and we were ready for it”.
Then, on May 15, an anti-tank missile hit him.
Rushed to the "medical bunker", the soldier found himself on an improvised operating table, on the verge of death.
The next morning, he had his leg amputated.
He is also seriously injured in the right eye.
The "Z" insignia on Russian soldiers
After regaining consciousness for a few seconds and then fainting again, Vladyslav is carried out of the steelworks as part of a deal that Kyiv hoped to save Azovstal defenders with.
He remembers, lying down, seeing the insignia of Russian soldiers bearing the "Z" symbol used by his enemies.
Due to his injuries, he did not share the same fate as his comrades sent to the infamous Olenivka prison in the occupied part of Ukraine's Donetsk region, where dozens of prisoners were killed by an explosion in July.
Six weeks in captivity
But weeks of captivity in a hospital in Donetsk brought him suffering of a different kind.
“There was moral pressure.
No contact with relatives, no access to the telephone, ”says the soldier.
Medical care was “very low level” and medicines were in short supply.
“I was dripping like rotten meat because after being badly injured I only started receiving antibiotics on the fifth day,” he says.
According to Vladyslav, he and three other soldiers in his room received just enough food "so that the heart wouldn't stop".
“And we were told every day that no one needed us, that we wouldn't be traded, that everyone had abandoned us”.
Then his six weeks in captivity abruptly ended.
"We were woken up at 4 am, we read the lists (of prisoners, editor's note), we were taken away, loaded into buses and transported until the evening," recalls Vladyslav.
prisoner exchanges
More than a hundred Ukrainian prisoners were exchanged that day.
“I couldn't breathe until I was on the Ukrainian side, out of range of the Russian artillery,” says the man.
“I gave a lot of work to our doctors,” smiles this career soldier, who says he continues to respect certain military obligations.
He speaks very calmly.
His voice only breaks once - when he speaks of the thousands of Ukrainian prisoners still in Russian captivity.
“It does not leave me in peace.
This is what presses me inside.
When the guys are back, I will be able to breathe more freely”.