A month after Russia seized Mariupol, families of Ukrainian fighters seek their release

The surviving defenders of the besieged Ukrainian city are being held by Russia as prisoners of war, with little information about their conditions or whereabouts.

The last time Kateryna Prokopenko spoke to her husband, in late May, the phone call lasted for just 13 seconds.

To the best of her knowledge, Denys Prokopenko — commander of the Azov Regiment, and one of the fighters who defended the Ukrainian city of Mariupol from Russian attacks — had been captured by Russian forces. He and thousands of other defenders had been taken into Russian-controlled territory in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where they are being held as prisoners of war.

“He could only ask me how I am, and I answered everything was okay,” Prokopenko told Global News in an interview from Kyiv about that conversation with her husband.

“I asked how he was, and I did not get an answer because the connection was really bad. He did not hear me. I did not hear him. It was like that for half a minute. It was just horrible. … So as for now, I don’t have any information where he is now at.”

Nearly a month after that call, Prokopenko and other family members of men who defended Mariupol and were captured by Russian troops have received little information on their whereabouts or condition. Moscow has not commented, and Ukrainian and international governments have had little luck getting answers.

As the war drags on and attention shifts to new battlefields in the Donbas, those family members are working to ensure the Mariupol defenders aren’t forgotten, and to keep international pressure on Russia to release them.

“They were fighting for us, for our lives, for their own relatives, for the whole country, for the whole world,” Prokopenko said.

“So we need to fight for them as well.”