A letter with my son’s handprints kept me going in Russian captivity

Stories of Survival: Ukrainian POWs

This is the second of a two-part series that documented the first-person accounts of Ukrainian soldiers who were taken prisoner early in Russia’s all-out invasion. Banker turned soldier Vitaliy Kravchenko and Pavlo Krysha were part of the same unit defending the eastern Ukrainian village of Dementiivka from Russian forces advancing on Kharkiv when they were captured. 

Vitaliy’s harrowing story can be found here: Ukrainian soldiers were dying on my cell floor

Immediately after my capture, Russian forces took me to a mobile prison camp near a forest, where they stripped me naked and taped me to a chair. Then the torture began – strangling, waterboarding, electric shocks using an old military field telephone.

And that was only the beginning. Starvation left me at 61 kilograms from my fighting weight of 78, and I contracted hepatitis C. In Tula, my last prison stay, they deprived us of proper sleep for more than a year. All of us prisoners counted the days, each of us keeping our own calendar in our heads.

But throughout my ordeal, it was a single letter that kept me going. When I read it, it felt as though someone had lifted a sack of cement off my shoulders. My young son had left the imprint of his small, paint-covered hands on the letter. Beside the marks were the words: “We are waiting for you.” I burst into tears.

I wanted to jump out of my skin

After our capture, the Russians took us to a temporary prison camp near a forest outside Shchebekino. They kept our eyes covered and our faces wrapped in tape, so we could see almost nothing. When the truck stopped, they threw us out like cattle. The interrogations began immediately.

ALSO READ: Ukrainian soldiers were dying on my cell floor

When FSB officers arrived, they questioned us about the location of our artillery and other operational information. We could not answer some of their questions because we did not know much. Then they put a cellophane bag over my head and strangled me. They began to waterboard me: one man pulled my head back with a towel while another poured water from a plastic bottle over my face.

Next, they applied electric shocks using the field telephone. Their torturer pushed two large needles into my thighs. I was so stunned that I did not feel them go in, but when the electricity hit, I wanted to jump out of my skin and run up the ceiling. I also saw an ordinary small military sapper shovel with a condom on it. Thank God, they did not use that.

The first letter I wrote to my mother

Later, they moved us from Shchebekino to Stary Oskol, a pretrial detention center of the type I had only seen in movies. It was like a large cage with bars, bridges, and passages everywhere, with old and new buildings standing side by side.

Every transfer came with a “reception.” Guards lined the corridor and beat us with their fists, kicked us, and struck us with rubber batons – and sometimes pipes – as we tried to run through as fast as we could. Then there was the bathhouse. That was horror. They beat us as we undressed, pulled us out of the shower before we could wash, and beat us again on the way back to our cells.

ALSO READ: Ukraine soldier loses arms to grenade attack, but not his passion for life

In Stary Oskol, I wrote a letter to my mother for the first time since my capture. The guards required me to write it, and I wrote: “Mom, everything is fine. Best of health to you.”

We were forced to learn Russian songs

On September 29, 2022, after about two and a half months in Stary Oskol, they transferred us to Donskoye. Again, they beat us upon arrival, then ordered us to undress completely in the bathhouse, supposedly for quarantine. The guys before us had at least been able to wash in cold water. We never got the chance.

Afterward, they knocked us into a heap in the corridor like chickens and pressed us together so tightly that we shuffled into the medical room like a human snake. The doctor was supposed to record any bruises he saw, although the staff sometimes turned a blind eye.

In Donskoye, they made us squat for hours at a time and learn their songs. When we hesitated, they mocked us: “Oh, you don’t want to sing?”  Every morning and night, they forced us to sing their anthem. One day, they pulled everyone from our cell into an empty room containing nothing but a table and beat us because we did not know the song “Victory Day.”

A year and ten months of sleep deprivation

After about eight months in Donskoye, on May 12, 2023, they transferred me to Tula, my last prison. There, many prisoners had sore legs from the beatings, and open ulcers opened up and began to rot. The guards simply handed out bandages.

They also pressured us to shave our heads. Some prisoners did, while others refused. The guys often shared the same clippers, but I didn’t because by then I had contracted hepatitis C.

ALSO READ: Journalist escapes Ukraine, details harrowing journey at the border

At night, they disrupted our sleep. We went to bed around 10, but at midnight, they woke us and made us stand for what seemed like forever. They woke us again between three and four in the morning, then again at six. For a year and 10 months, they never let us sleep properly. We counted the days, each of us keeping our own calendar in our heads.

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We feared the exchange could fall apart

One day, they called my last name, along with that of a border guard from my cell. They searched us, took us downstairs, and hinted that an exchange was possible. We had heard that hint three times before, and we prayed it was true, because we did not want to go through the torture of being transferred to a new prison again.

ALSO READ: Sleeping under the bombs of Kharkiv: mother details the terrifying journey out of Ukraine

They drove us to an airfield in a paddy wagon, blindfolded and with our hands tied, and kept us in a hangar for three days. The concrete floor was bitterly cold, even in summer, and the guards kept rewrapping the tape around our eyes. Uncertainty hung over us as they kept telling us that the two sides could not agree on the number of prisoners. I thought the deal could collapse at any second.

Finally, on August 24, 2025 – Ukraine’s Independence Day – they loaded us onto a plane and flew us to Gomel, Belarus, where they put us on buses. At the Chernihiv border, we stepped off our buses as Russian prisoners of war stepped out of theirs on the other side. As we swapped sides, we Ukrainian prisoners could finally raise our eyes and look clearly at each other for the first time in almost three years.

My son had to learn who his father was

After I crossed into Ukraine, I first saw my family during a video call. Later, they came to see me in Vinnytsia. My son was only six months old when the Russians captured me, and when I returned, he was a little boy who could walk. He does not speak very well yet, so we are working with a speech therapist, and he still does not fully understand that I am his father. 

My wife kept showing him photos, and it was very hard for her, too. She told me that one day, while I was still in captivity, my son saw a man in military uniform walking by, he ran up to him, grabbed him by the leg, and shouted, “Dad!” 

The effects of captivity will stay with me for the rest of my life. They can return at any moment – a smell, the sight of mold, or even a particular saying. I used to speak Russian, but now I speak more Surzhyk, which is closer to Ukrainian. Honestly, I find Russian disgusting now.

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