“I saw Oleh in a courtroom on YouTube. He looked like an exhausted old man.” Stories of Azov fighters on trial in Russia

Russia planned to try the captured Azov fighters in occupied Mariupol last year. In the end, the case was transferred to the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don. In total, 24 Ukrainians were put on trial. Two of them returned home as a result of the prisoner exchange. So today, 22 people are on trial in Russia.

hromadske contacted their relatives. Here is what they told us about their loved ones.

Olena Avramova, 49, a cook and an Azov soldier

“I am afraid that they can intimidate Liena, break her psychologically, and she will refuse to go for a prisoner exchange, I know similar stories,” says Tetiana, Olena Avramova's sister. The women have not seen each other since April 27, 2022 – on that day, on the order of the “DPR Prosecutor General's Office”, Olena was taken into custody at her home in the Manhush Raion of Donetsk Oblast, accused of terrorism against the “DPR”.

For several years, Olena worked as a freelancer in Azov's economic unit. In 2017, she signed a contract and officially became a soldier and cook for the regiment. In early April 2022, she managed to escape from Azovstal's territory and returned home to her mother, sister, and two children. And when Russia occupied the Mangush Raion, someone ratted on Liena that she had served in Azov, and they came for her.

“We were all at home at the time, but what could we do against armed men?” says Tetiana. “They didn't beat Liena, they just shouted at her a lot and called her a terrorist. Liena took the arrest calmly, and did not resist, I think she was afraid for us and did not want to escalate the situation. They took her away, and they came to our house several more times to search around: they were looking for weapons, and some documents, they found nothing, but they made us hysterical. It's very scary when your house is searched and surrounded by machine gunners, and you are completely defenseless.”

Worried about Olena's fate, her family constantly wrote inquiries to various “DPR structures”. The answers came on the letterhead of the “Federal Penitentiary Service of the Donetsk People's Republic”. From them and through a lawyer from Donetsk, the family learned the route of Olena's ordeal: Manhush – Dokuchaievsk – Olenivka (the prison where the Russians blew up our prisoners in July 2022) - SIZO in Donetsk. Tetiana learned that Liena had been transferred from Donetsk to Rostov-on-Don (hereinafter: Rostov - ed.) and that there would be a trial on June 14 from the Internet. Together with Liena's daughter, she went there.

“We have Ukrainian passports and Ukrainian license plates on our car, so it was scary to go,” says Tetiana. “In Novoazovsk, they checked us for a long time: they took photos, and fingerprints, and asked why we didn't have Russian passports. But on the 14th, we were already at the court building at 9 am. Liena's Donetsk lawyer did not want to go to Rostov, but here my sister was assigned a Russian public defender. He told us not to be afraid, saying, ‘There are no beats here’. But it seems to me that nothing depends on him here. Because on the 14th, he told us that he still had to familiarize himself with the case – the trial had already begun, and he hadn't read it yet.”

Tetiana did not see her sister in the courtroom: the lawyer said that Olena Avramova was ill. Her relatives were allowed to send her food to the Rostov detention center. But no medicines. They said that they would receive them only after a visit to a doctor, who, according to the lawyer, was supposed to visit the sick prisoner on June 20.

“We fought off the Russian journalists there, we didn't want to talk to them, but when I realized that Liena would not be in the courtroom, I deliberately shouted into the camera of their NTV channel to tell Liena that we were here and would come back to support her somehow,” says Tetiana.

The family is very worried about Olena's health: the woman did not have any chronic illnesses before, and now she is in such a state that she was not even brought to court. For all this time, the family was able to send her clothes only once – back to Olenivka. Because the Russians have not allowed them to do so for more than a year – not a single call or letter. Tetiana wrote a statement to the Rostov judge to allow her to see her sister.

Oleh Zharkov, 52, a former employee of Azov's economic unit

“Oleh has a sick heart, diabetes, stomach ulcers, he was not drafted for military service – he was a contractor in Azov, he never took part in hostilities. How could anyone have imagined that he would become a prisoner of war and be tried by a Russian military court?” Halyna, the wife of Oleh Zharkov, is worried.

The woman and her ten-year-old son are now abroad. On the morning of February 24, 2022, when the Russians hit a neighboring house with missiles, Oleh drove his family from the outskirts of Mariupol, where they lived, to the city center, which was not yet heavily shelled, and went to work. They have not seen each other since then. Oleh does not know that his wife and son miraculously managed to leave Mariupol on March 15 and that Halyna and Ivan are safe. “I'm afraid that he won't be able to bear not knowing about us, that his illnesses will get worse because of this,” says Halyna.

Until April of this year, Halyna also knew nothing about her husband. Then she received a call from a friend: Oleh was in captivity, a mutual acquaintance had seen him in a Novoazovsk prison. The man shared a cell with Oleh for several days. He said that there were three of them, and they were given a liter and a half of water and some canned food for three days. And that Oleh was to be transferred to Donetsk. And then Halyna started writing to the President's Office, contacting the Red Cross to get Oleh included in the exchange lists.

“I saw Oleh in the courtroom on a YouTube channel and was stunned. It was not him, but some exhausted old man. And he had a fresh scar on his temple – was he beaten? Before the war, Oleh weighed more than a hundred kilograms, and I used to jokingly call him a teddy bear. And now what's left of him? And his eyes are so faded, so longing. I put this photo on my phone as a screensaver – I look at it and cry,” thewoman says.

She does not tell her son that his father is a prisoner of war. She just says that they will see each other after the war. But she shared the news with Oleh's parents, who remained in Mariupol and asked her 72-year-old mother-in-law to go to Rostov for the trial. But she is afraid.

“Oleh and I have been married for thirty years, we did business together, everything was fine. Now it hurts my soul that we are here in good conditions, and he is so unhappy there. But would it have been easier for him if our son and I were unhappy?” Halyna asks herself. She is looking forward to the next court hearing – to hear her husband's voice, to see him – even if it is on YouTube. She hopes that Oleh will be exchanged.

Oleksandr Merochenets, 24, a grenade launcher

Back in 2014, Sashko's family (his father was a police officer and did not want to serve for the “DPR”) moved from the city of Torez in Donetsk Oblast to Zaporizhzhia. At the age of 18, Sashko signed a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, served in various units, and later joined Azov and ended up in Mariupol. On February 24, 2022, he called his parents: he said he loved them and asked them to take care of themselves. After that, they occasionally managed to talk to him – literally for a minute or two. The last voice message his family received from him was on March 27, 2022. Sashko said that Mariupol would soon fall...

“One of the former colleagues in the Donetsk police called our father and told him that Sashko was rumored to be in captivity,” says Nastia, the boy's sister. “And on Instagram, Sashko's girlfriend, who was able to travel to Kyiv, was contacted by some Russian soldiers and told that they needed to confirm Sashko's identity. Then our mother received a call from a ‘DPR investigator’. Sashko was then allowed to talk to our mother on the phone. We were convinced that it was really him and that he was really in captivity.” However, this has not yet been officially confirmed by Russia.

It so happened that Sashko's mother had to return from Zaporizhzhia to the “DPR” to take care of her elderly parents. At first, it seemed like a big problem for the family, but it was thanks to her return to the temporarily occupied territory that the mother could send Sashko medicines to the Donetsk detention center and correspond with her son through a lawyer.

“My mom bought a lot of medicine because we realized that Sashko was not alone in the cell.”

However, no one told us what kind of medicine he needed and what Sashko was suffering from, so we gave him painkillers, fever, and cold medicine. They did not take any food or clothes from us. Sashko wrote that he was not beaten, but why did he ask us to send him brilliant green? Our mother was not allowed to see him. In January 2023, Sashko was included in the exchange list, but instead of being exchanged, he was taken to court in Rostov,” says Nastia.

The woman is very surprised that no one from the Red Cross came to the court, and no one reported any news about Sashko – on the contrary, the Red Cross representatives themselves tried to find out about Sashko's case from his relatives.

“Sashko did not know that his mother would come to the court on June 14. She could hardly keep from bursting into tears when she saw him. He had lost a lot of weight, his hair had fallen out, and he had a strong physique, he had been involved in various sports since childhood. They were not allowed to talk, so they communicated with their eyes, gestures, and facial expressions. My mom realized that Sashko had asked to send T-shirts and sneakers. They allow one parcel of 30 kilograms once a month, so my mother has already prepared everything and will deliver it to the next court session – vegetables, sugar, tea, cookies, halva, cigarettes, candy, and toothpaste squeezed into a bag. Sasha has a new lawyer there, a woman from Rostov instead of a Donetsk lawyer. She said that with the money Sasha could buy some food in the prison store, and promised to arrange a meeting with him,” Nastia says.

She is scared for her brother: “But maybe it's a good thing that Sashko is on trial now,” Nastia consoles herself. “The trial is public, so he will be alive, they won't kill him in that prison.”

The next court hearing is scheduled for June 28, unless the date is changed. On that day, many relatives intend to come to the court. The Russians accuse all 22 Ukrainians of terrorist activities and they face 15 years to life imprisonment. But the families believe that all this is a propaganda farce. And the main questions are: will Moscow include the Azov prisoners in the prisoner exchange lists and when will this exchange take place? Or are those on trial already off the list? There are currently no answers to these questions.

Author: Maia Orel