They left Kiev on April 23. They passed through the Vatican, Poland and Germany before arriving in France this weekend. Three women, married to fighters from the last stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance against the Russians in Mariupol, mobilize for at least one country to save their comrades from this hell.
“The more countries there are, the faster we have a chance to find a solution,” Olha Andrianova, 30, the oldest of the group, told AFP in an interview.
They had a five-minute meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican. Hanna Naumenko, 25, hopes to be able to speak with President Emmanuel Macron or his wife Brigitte in France, but explains that their “main goal” is to “draw attention to the situation” in Azovstal.
The men with whom she shared their lives before the war are among the Ukrainian fighters residing at the Azovstal steelworks. They have been besieged and besieged by the Russians and have been struggling for weeks to seize this last stronghold of resistance in Mariupol, a strategic southeast port city that has been largely devastated by war.
The Ukrainian government began difficult negotiations with the Russians to evacuate at least the most seriously injured. “It’s not because they haven’t done enough, it’s because they can do more,” says Olha, who works as head of a network of kindergartens in Kiev diplomatically.
Food and water shortages
The three women describe in detail the critical condition of their spouses and the difficult separation that lasted several months.
Like most women of the warriors of the Azov regiment, they met their partners online. “We had the same hobbies, the same musical tastes,” says Kateryna Prokopenko, 27-year-old children’s illustrator and wife of Denys, one of the battalion commanders.
Kharkov-born Hanna says she has repeatedly postponed the wedding she had planned since 2014 because she couldn’t get enough of her boyfriend Dmytro. “I was hoping the war in Donbass was over and we could live together as a real couple because we only saw each other a few days a month,” she says.
The three continue to receive regular news from their partners in Azovstal, but the situation is so critical that “every day (if that was it) counts as six months or a year”, says Olha, her husband for two weeks. He said he was shot in the leg and was among the injured.
Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, said that of the nearly 1,000 soldiers who were trapped under the bombs recently, about 600 were injured.
There is no more food and water is so scarce that she shares glasses and “takes a sip every six or eight hours,” Olha says.
“People are being operated on, amputated without anesthesia,” as the steel mill’s temporary hospital is demolished.
Warriors refuse to surrender. “It would be tantamount to death,” the woman says. There are already arrested members of the Azov battalion. “They were brutally tortured, and then the Russians sent photos of the tortured bodies to their mothers,” he said.
The women admit that despite requests and wishes made directly on social media by some Azovstal fighters, no country has offered to free their comrades.
The West has increased its military aid to Ukraine, but reiterates that it wants to avoid directly intervening in the conflict for fear of confrontation with Russia.
Despite this, the trio does not lose hope and intends to continue their journey until “our men withdraw”, he assures Hanna.
So far, they say they’ve funded the trip themselves, but several associations have offered to help. Hanna says she’s sure her husband Dmytro “will be released, get married, and have lots of kids.”
source: Noticias
