"Guys were burning, screaming, some were ripped in half": Azov fighters remember the Olenivka attack – and life afterwards
"I ran over to Kosmos. I started shouting his name, ‘Bodia, Bodia!’ But Bodia showed no signs of life," Ostap "Ostapchyk" Shved, a 32-year-old reconnaissance soldier, recalls.
Now Ostap has only memories of his brother-in-arms. Kosmos was one of the 54 Azov fighters who were killed in Barrack 200 in the Olenivka prison camp.
Russian forces moved 193 captured Azov soldiers and defenders of Mariupol into that barrack before blowing it up on the night of 28-29 July 2022.
More than 130 survived, but for most, their suffering did not end there. Ahead lay inhumane torture in Donetsk, Taganrog, Kamyshin, or even beyond the Arctic Circle.
After many months of captivity, a few dozen fighters were eventually released in a prisoner swap. Some have recovered and returned to the front, while others have spent those years unable to move on from what they endured.
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In 2025, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (Ukrainian parliament) designated 28 July as a Day of Mourning and Remembrance for defenders, volunteers and civilians who were executed, tortured, or died in captivity.
On this day, Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia (Life) not only honours the fallen but also remembers the survivors who carry the pain of loss forever.
Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia spoke with two Azov fighters, alias Ostapchyk and Matros, about their memories of the most terrifying night of their lives, their fallen brothers-in-arms, and life after returning home. What follows is their story, told in their own words.
Ostap "Ostapchyk" Shved
"The camp commander sat drinking coffee, smoking and watching us die"
I’m originally from Stryi in Lviv Oblast. I’m a trained clinical pharmacist and a nurse. I joined Azov in 2015 and served in the reconnaissance platoon of the 2nd battalion.
During one of the operations in Mariupol, I lost my little finger and injured my ring finger. Then on 15 April 2022, during the breakthrough to the Azovstal steelworks, I was wounded again – this time by shrapnel to the stomach. By then, I was already working at the makeshift hospital known as "Zaliziaka".
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On 18 May, I left Azovstal, together with other lightly wounded soldiers and medics from the 555th hospital.
At first, conditions in Olenivka were relatively bearable. We were placed in Barrack No. 2, where 333 Azov soldiers had already been placed. People slept wherever they could, and many ended up sleeping outside in the yard because of the lack of air and space.
Two days before the explosion, we were told we were going to be moved so that repairs could be done in the barrack. We were taken into the industrial zone of the penal colony. The machine hall had been prepared in advance by other POWs: there were beds with no mattresses and two 500-litre water barrels, which smelled like swamp water and had tadpoles swimming in them.
Then a commander came in and gave a speech, saying we had to stay there to help relieve pressure on the prison. We did a headcount and went to sleep. There’s a well-known photo of the wall in the barrack that had "193 people inside" written on it. Originally there were 200 of us, but seven people were taken to Donetsk that evening.
On the first day, floodlights were set up around the barrack and directed at it, but they were later taken down. On 28 July, someone from the management brought in two electricians. One of them began attaching floodlights directly to the building.
We were ordered out into the yard while the other man and someone from the management went inside. They were doing something near the electrical panel and wiring in lighting for us. Some said it was in preparation for a prisoner swap; others thought we were going to be moved to a different prison.
That day, we were told not to leave the barracks after 22:00 and only to go to the toilet in pairs. After dinner, Kosmos and I sat outside for a long time.
When the lights went out, I couldn’t sleep – the hangar was made of corrugated metal, there was no air and no windows. I was lying with my head against the wall, but then I turned the other way because my brother-in-arms on the top bunk had really smelly feet. That saved my life – the shrapnel later hit my legs instead of my head.
Around 23:00, a Grad multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) began firing – the Russians launched a full salvo from inside the industrial zone. Then came mortar strikes. The whole thing was staged to make it look like we were being attacked by our Ukrainian forces.
In the middle of the night, there was the first explosion – and then, seconds later, the second. The detonation came from inside the building. I fell from the middle bunk and rolled to the side. We were burning, and everyone was screaming.
The door had been blown off, but the way out was blocked by bunk beds and the bodies of our guys, as the blast wave had shoved everything out of place. The only window, which had bars on it, had been blown out, and we started pulling those who were wounded out through it. I dragged a few men out, then kept going back in.
I ran over to Kosmos, shouting his name, "Bodia! Bodia!" But he didn’t respond. That was the first time I froze – he was someone I was close to. I kept yelling his name, but then I saw his head had been smashed in. The black cap he’d fallen asleep in was soaked in blood and torn apart…
At that moment, someone was dragging out another guy with both legs shattered, and I helped. Then I ran back for Kosmos again, but he was already gone. I tried to pull another guy out – he was half-burnt – but I couldn’t manage it.
The brothers-in-arms who were near the centre of the blast had been torn to pieces. Right by the exit, there had been a two-level bunk, and the man sleeping on the middle bunk was ripped in half. His lower body was still on the bed, the upper half had dropped below, with just the intestines holding him together. I’ll never forget that.
We carried the wounded to an alleyway by the entrance gate. No help came. When we approached the bars, the Russians threw a stun grenade and fired into the air. Only one special forces soldier threw us a first-aid kit. Inside were two Individual First Aid Dressing sets, a pair of scissors and an Esmarch tourniquet. I cut the tourniquet in two and used it on two of the men.
We tore up our shirts to stem the bleeding while the camp commander sat drinking coffee, smoking and watching us die. After an hour and a half, the Russians finally threw over a sack of torn bed sheets and a few bottles of water.
Around 05:00, they finally let in a few prisoner medics from the 555th hospital – they had a couple of CAT tourniquets, bandages and gauze. Some of the guys had already died from lack of proper medical care, and we were pulling their bodies over to the fence.
One of my brothers-in-arms was injured beyond words – head, torso, stomach pierced through, every limb crushed… When I came closer to check if he was still alive, the colony chief looked at him and said, "Oh, this one’s dead already? Good," and went on sipping his coffee.
Around 07:00, they told us that lorries were on their way. We, who were wounded ourselves, started loading the guys with severe injuries into a KAMAZ lorry. But the men were all immobile, and the lorries filled up quickly. We had to stack the wounded on top of each other.
There were Russian medics in the prison and ambulances parked outside that night, but they didn’t lift a finger to help us. Later I went back to the barracks – it had completely burned down – and I didn’t see any signs of an incoming strike. No shrapnel marks on the walls. The roof had blown outwards, not in.
They moved us to the disciplinary detention centre. There were 35 of us crammed in a cell, all with shrapnel wounds. We were covered in blood, and some of the guys were already rotting. I had a hole in my leg that wouldn’t close up. There was a piece of glass stuck in my foot.
The girls – medics in the disciplinary detention centre – talked the guards into letting us out to wash so they would have a chance to dress our wounds. On day five, some doctors from the "DPR" [the Donetsk People’s Republic, a self-proclaimed and unrecognised Russia-backed formation in Donetsk Oblast – ed.] finally showed up and pulled the shrapnel out of my foot.
Some of the guys were taken for interrogations. When Steven Seagal came [the American actor and Putin fan – ed.], the Russians said, "We need someone lively." They picked the least injured and the ones with visible tattoos to parade on camera to show what kind of "Nazis" we supposedly were.
Every evening we’d hear the sound of beatings in the hallway of the disciplinary detention centre. They didn’t touch us – apparently they’d been ordered not to harm those who’d survived "Barrack 200". But around 04:00, we’d hear the sound of duct tape unrolling – they used it to tie people up so they couldn’t scream. Then came the groans and the cries…
Read more : "Sometimes I think that Oleksii is lying sick in captivity. Hope smoulders in my soul." In memory of the Azov fighters killed in Olenivka
About a month later, Russian special forces raided our cell, stripped us down, and moved us back to Barrack No. 2. On 26 September we were moved to Taganrog. When the KAMAZ lorry pulled into the detention centre, the Russians blasted their music at full volume. A bunch of prison staff stood waiting there, shouting: "Get the f**k out, you bastards!" As the guys tried to climb out, they were yanked down by their legs and beaten.
It happens like this: you jump out of the KAMAZ, and while you're still in the air, they start beating you with batons. You fall, and they finish you off on the ground. The next group of guys were thrown right on top of us.
Then they strip you, beat you again, and march you to a cold shower. Once there are five of you lined up by the wall, they take you further: fingerprints, shave your head, cut off a lock of hair for DNA.
Then comes the "stretch": hands on the wall, legs in a split, the guard hits you with a stun gun. They take you to an office and throw you on the floor, you spread your arms and legs, and the guard stands on them and beats your buttocks, while a female officer starts questioning: "Surname, first name, middle name? Where did you serve? Where are you from? Where did you study?"
You have to speak without pausing while they hit you. Every sound of pain means another blow. Then they tell you to get up and hand you a form. I sign it, and the woman says, "Hang on," and starts writing something like "dickhead" or "f**ker" on my forehead with a pen. I was soaked, the pen wouldn’t write, so she pressed it into my skin…
A few days later the torture started. Beatings and humiliation are one thing, but proper torture is carried out by trained professionals in a separate room. The torture methods varied: electric shocks, an improvised shock device called a "tapik", being hung on a hook.
The medics suffered the most because for some reason the Russians believed our medics were cutting off POWs’ testicles. And if you're a medic and a renaissance soldier – that’s a jackpot.
It wasn’t until one of our brothers-in-arms died that they started beating us less. After his death, we were given a whole loaf of bread for the first time. As it turned out later, the special forces team had been replaced.
Read more:"We're tired of beating you Ukes": Azov fighter Yuzhnyi on his two years of torture in Taganrog, prison humour, and his own system of survival
I spent a year in captivity. The day before the exchange, they took me to the torture room – hung me up, poured water on me, beat me with a stun gun and threatened to rape me. One of them started slicing my ear with a blunt knife. They beat me for several hours, dragged me back to the cell and told me to clean myself up – I was filthy, covered in dirt from the floor.
Not even 20 minutes later, the cell door opened and someone said: "Out." They led me back in the direction of the torture room, but we turned to another building – a route I’d never been taken before. They brought me and five or six others into a space they called "the glass" – where you wait your turn to be tortured. A special forces guy told us to start doing push-ups, but a Federal Penitentiary Service officer said: "Back off, leave these six."
The six of us sat under the wall while they tortured the others. Then they started calling us one by one. In the room, the officer asked me something and gave me a sandwich of sprats and pickles.
I asked: "Comrade officer, is this happening because we’re going to be tried?" And he slipped up: "Not necessarily." In the next room, another officer said 12 of us were going to be exchanged the next day.
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On 6 May 2023, we returned to Ukrainian territory. I recovered and went back to the front. I think the only thing that helped me survive was the desire for revenge. If you stay home, you'll lose your mind.
Since captivity, I can’t gain weight and I no longer take cold showers – but otherwise I'm fine. The hardest thing is losing friends.
Read more: The story of Kraft, an Azov Brigade soldier who survived the Russian terrorist attack on the prison camp in occupied Olenivka
Mykyta "Matros" Shastun
"I was covered in fibreglass, running back into the barracks – and I saw guys being burned alive in their beds."
I’m originally from Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast. I started serving in the military in 2018 and was discharged in 2021. When the full-scale invasion began, my brother called me to join him in Azov.
The three most horrific days of my life were: 30 March – the day my brother was killed in action, 15 April – the breakthrough to Azovstal, and 28-29 July – the Olenivka barracks…
Our unit left Azovstal on 17 May along with the wounded. At first, we were kept in Barrack No. 2. During that period, I was taken for interrogation two or three times, but they didn’t beat me.
A few days before the explosion, we were moved to the industrial zone, to a former metalworking hall. There were lots of machines and tightly packed metal beds.
Our late commander, Yura, told us to take positions on the side – specific spots he had chosen. We’d been thinking about other places; if we had picked those, we probably would’ve stayed there forever. Maybe he had a gut feeling. We lay down where he told us to – and survived.
We started sensing something was off when the captured marines began digging trenches for the Russians about 50 to 70 metres from us. On the second night, the guards changed. They were men dressed in black.
The next night, the explosion happened. The guys say there were outgoing Grad rockets just before that, but I don’t remember much anymore.
The moment of the explosion, there was a bright flash and the sensation of something hitting my feet and burning my legs. I shut my eyes, but the flash was so strong that the light pierced through my eyelids.
The commander and I were about seven metres from the epicentre. Everyone started screaming and panicking. I jumped down, stepped on glass, put on my boots and climbed out through the window because it was impossible to get out through the main entrance – it was all on fire.
People were shouting at me, "Run, get water, we’ll try to put it out." I was covered in fibreglass and small burns, filling up water, running back into the barracks – and I saw guys being burned alive in their beds, the flames crawling over their skin. Some had body parts torn off, everyone was screaming. And you couldn’t pull them out because they were already on fire…
I started making another exit, ripping the mesh, shouting "Get out!" We ran towards the entrance, where the Russians were already standing. They started firing into the air, shouting, "If you break down the doors, we’ll shoot you dead!"
We began dragging out the wounded, looking for sticks to make makeshift tourniquets and stop the bleeding. The Russians threw us some cloth – bedsheets torn into strips.
From the moment of the explosion until around 08:00, we were helping the wounded, pulling out bodies, and loading the severely injured onto KAMAZ lorries. They [the Russians] sent those who were more or less intact to the disciplinary detention centre.
A cell in the detention centre was about 5x5 or 6x6 metres. There were wooden pallets with no mattresses. There were 37 of us. It was summer, and it was insanely hot. We drank service water. To go to the toilet, we’d wait until five to seven people had been, and only then would we flush. We saved as much as we could.
The guys had all kinds of injuries – from burns and shrapnel wounds to severe concussion. I had about five pieces of shrapnel in my feet. Over time they started to fester, so I squeezed them out myself.
Two days later, we were taken for a shower. The female medics there begged the guards to let them treat our wounds.
But the clothes we had on were filthy – stinking and covered in fibreglass. Later, some of the guys from the other barracks tried to pass us boots and trousers, but the guards took them for themselves.
We knew the Russians had put shrapnel from a HIMARS missile in the barracks and claimed Ukraine was behind the strike, but no one believed them. As an artilleryman, I knew perfectly well that this was an organised execution of Azov Regiment fighters.
About a month after the attack, we were moved back to the barracks. In September, when the major prisoner exchange involving the commanders took place, I was sent to Taganrog. I thought I’d die there.
On 26 September, we were brought to Detention Centre No. 2. The Russian national anthem was playing at full blast, and the intake process began. As I climbed down from the two-metre-high side of the KAMAZ lorry, I fell headfirst onto the asphalt and began to lose consciousness. They just beat us…
For the next three months, twice a day, we were dragged out of our cells, beaten and thrown back in. Every single day.
After Barrack 200, I was left with concussion, constant ringing in my ears and headaches. But the shrapnel eventually came out, and the minor burns had enough time to heal.
I lost 40 kg (88 lb) in captivity. The guys used to call me Trempel (which means "coat hanger") because I was tall and skinny. When they shaved my head bald, I started calling myself "a child of Auschwitz".
They fed us some sort of pasta, but it was like sticky glue. We got fish heads from blue whiting, and if we were lucky, barley groats. What kept me going was a single thought: I will get out, I’ll live a normal life, and the Russians will stay here like this. When a Russian guard is telling the food server, "Don’t give them too much – save some for me, I’ll take it home," it’s horrifying to live like this.
Our cell was freezing – there were broken windows and a radiator that barely gave off any heat. But we were lucky. Some prisoners were forced to stand all day. We were allowed to sit, so we huddled close together to stay warm.
In captivity, I started praying three times a day, though I hadn’t been religious before. At first, I prayed for all our fallen brothers-in-arms – for their bodies to be brought home and to be buried with honour. Then I prayed for my family, for the guys who were imprisoned with me, and only at the end for myself.
The exchange was supposed to happen on 30 December. They took us out of the cell, filmed us, and then, three hours later, I heard the guards running around shouting that it was all cancelled. I realised I probably wouldn’t ever have a chance to go home.
The next morning, I woke up earlier than usual and began to pray again, for another miracle. And then I heard my surname…
Then came the plane, Belgorod, the buses. And then someone said: "Guys, please lift your heads." That was it, I felt I was home. You can’t put that feeling into words.
When we got into the [Ukrainian] bus, I said, "Guys, I’ve been waiting to do this the whole time in captivity," and I started singing the Ukrainian national anthem.
Over there, we were forced to sing the Russian anthem every two or three hours and to learn this poem called Forgive Us, Brother Russians by heart. But here, you can simply raise your head, look people in the eye and sing your own national anthem.
I stepped off the bus in Sumy Oblast. I kissed the snow and the ground – I was that happy…
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Recovery was hard. I had survivor’s guilt – knowing that guys were still in captivity while I was out and feeling like I didn’t deserve to be exchanged. Then came severe PTSD from losing my brother. I started to realise that I’d survived one of the bloodiest meat grinders since World War II.
What saved me was travelling to Spain for psilocybin-assisted therapy under medical supervision. I hadn’t believed in that sort of thing at all, but it really helped me. It was like I relived my brother’s death and the Olenivka attack, and after that, I understood what I wanted from life.
Many of my friends who survived are still in captivity. Some have been "convicted" of terrorism or killing civilians in trumped-up cases.
Read more:"See you soon" – then a life sentence. When someone you love is detained in a Russian prison camp in Siberia
I stay in touch with the guys who survived the attack and were released. We support each other. But I don’t talk to them the way people used to talk to me: "It’s all good, man, you’re strong, you’ll recover in no time."
I know how bad the guys who survived are feeling. I say: "What do you want to do, man? Where can I take you? Let’s just go somewhere and sit, have some coffee."
All men are afraid to show weakness, especially in front of those they fought alongside. I don’t care what people think or say about me, because I know how messed up your head can be [after captivity – ed.].
People will hold on as long as they can, and then, some cupboard will slam shut or they’ll hear a Shahed drone overhead, and they snap.
For me, it happened while I was watching the film Django. I was just lying there watching the movie, holding a bottle of alcohol-free beer, and suddenly I broke down – panic, crying, struggling to breathe. I was crawling to the bathroom on my knees. My stepdad helped me up and got me into the shower.
I sat under hot and cold water for an hour or two until the boiler ran out, just to feel like I was back in my body. During power outages, if someone suddenly came into the room, I would mentally reach for my rifle and scream like a madman. That’s why the "stay silent" strategy doesn’t work for everyone. It only works up to a point.
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My wife and I separated a year after I came back. We’d had three years of a perfect relationship, we never fought – but when I came back, everything changed. I just couldn’t live with someone anymore as I’d become a different person.
In August 2023, I left the military. I had one meniscus removed from my knee and I’m waiting for the second now. I’m working at Kill House, an FPV drone training school, with the 3rd Assault Brigade. I lead sessions, and I really enjoy it.
I guess I wasn’t ready, either physically and mentally, to go back to the front. I was deeply broken, to be honest. It took me two years after my release just to start breathing freely again.
Read more:"Relatives said: people like you should be killed." The story of a woman who survived torture and fled occupied Mariupol twice
Author : Olena Barsukova
Translation : Myroslava Zavadska
Editing : Teresa Pearce
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