It doesn't matter what's outside the window — autumn, winter, spring, or summer — I am stuck in 29.07.2022

In the world of official, faceless information, a boy forgets his father's voice, and a girl who has already learned to run grows up with no father. Both men are in captivity. The bride recently turned 22 and buried her beloved three days after her birthday — his body was recently identified.

hromadske spoke to the families of the prisoners of war who were in the barracks of the Olenivka penal colony, which was blown up by the Russian forces on the night of 29 July. More than 50 Azov battalion fighters were killed, and more than 100 were injured. The exact numbers will be known when all the bodies are identified, and all the prisoners from barrack 200 (as it was named after the attack) are returned home.

Nastia and Artem: "My heart beats for two"

They fell in love later in life. Both of them have had their first marriages, betrayals, and recoveries. Two people who had been friends for 20 years got together while supporting each other. Artem and Nastia.

"We lived happily. We got married. Artem was so romantic: he used to go buy bread and ended up with flowers for me," the woman says with tenderness.

"Since childhood, he dreamed of saving people, his favorite program was 911 (a documentary series about the rescue service in the U.S. - ed.) For about 15 years, he worked as a firefighter, then, he was in service in the Gulf of Oman protecting ships from Somali pirates. A few years ago, we moved to Mariupol because my husband joined the Azov battalion. He dreamed of this elite unit so much and was preparing for it – they have high standards for physical fitness. He had never smoked a single cigarette, he always maintained a healthy lifestyle. He is also a true patriot of Ukraine," she says.

On February 24, 2022, Artem called from the service. I could hear shots on the phone.

"Run away immediately! Save your daughters!" (Nastia has two adult daughters from her first marriage – ed.), he shouted to Nastia ...

And she ran away. With no food and no sleep for three days, she drove a car for the first time in her life. But she escaped. In April, her husband's command contacted her. She discovered he was at Azovstal and had been wounded in the pelvis. She made him tell her what happened.

The fragment remained in his body. At that time, doctors still had antibiotics and were treating the wound. At first, the man did not feel his limbs because of the broken nerves, but then he got on his feet and limped.

They were chatting online for ten days. Artem was desperate and wrote a farewell letter to his son from his first marriage:

"I made him rewrite it, adding more hope for the future. I asked to write about where we would travel and about our plans for the coming years. After that, he replied that we would adopt a child who had been orphaned in this terrible war. Those days, we dreamed of meeting this child, hugging it, and being caring and loving parents to the baby. He also badly wanted syrnyky (curd cheese pancakes – ed.) ... he wrote that he dreamed of food. He said that many dogs came to their house. And that he and the boys feed them, giving the last of their food. And that the doctors were running out of medicine and the guys with amputated arms and legs were rotting alive," Nastia recalls.

And then the connection was lost. The woman continued writing to her beloved on social media, dedicating poems, and contacting various organizations.

"My heart beats as long as yours does. So take care of us both," reads the posters she takes to rallies to remind her of her husband and the prisoners of war.

On June 18, 2022, Artem managed to call from the Olenivka colony and say that he would return home by August. The woman believed him.

In July, after the attack, she had a nervous breakdown: Artem was listed among the wounded from barrack 200. Then she spent several days in bed, barely breathing.

In August 2022, a Russian TV channel broadcasted live from a Donetsk hospital. Her husband, 40-year-old Artem Hondiul, also was in the footage. He was starved, with his head barely resting on his thin neck.

"It looks like he weighed 40 kilograms. He said he was recovering, that he loved me, and was waiting for the exchange. After that, no news. Neither where he is nor what happened to his injury. I'm afraid for him, they are torturing him. How can you stand it for months?" the woman is angry with the country's leadership, which, in her opinion, is not doing enough to free the PoWs.

Nastia has been waiting for her husband for the second summer. She had already packed to follow him wherever he was taken.

"When we meet, it will be the happiest day. I will hold his hand and never let go. We will adopt a child and start our lives from scratch," Nastia hopes.

Meanwhile, Artem's own son is forgetting his voice.

Hanna and Oleh: daughter grows up without knowing her father

"When I married Oleh, I didn't really understand what being a service member's wife meant. I knew little about my husband's service. He separated home and work, and I accepted this position," says 29-year-old Hanna Lobova.

Before the full-scale invasion, they were living their dreams and expecting a child.

"There is a park near our house, and we used to drink coffee there every weekend. Since January 2022, I've been hearing elderly people talking about the start of the full-scale war and the ratio of rubles to hryvnia. I asked my husband about it, but even though he knew the truth, he wanted to keep me calm for a while. That's why he joked around," she recalls.

In January, their daughter was born. Oleh took her and his wife from the hospital. He saw the baby one more time when he managed to get a day off from his service. A few days before the invasion, he took his family to another city to visit friends. They met the February 24th there.

Oleh was defending Mariupol as an Azov battalion member. The woman had to flee with the child (for security reasons, we do not name Anna's place of residence before February 24, nor where she is now – ed.)

Once every two weeks, she received a text message: "I'm alive."

He called on May 30 from Olenivka. His voice was hoarse as if he caught a cold or someone was pressing on his throat. Hanna bombarded him with questions.

"They are feeding me ..." he said. And that was it.

A month later, she received news from his fellow soldier, who was one of the first to be released from captivity. He saw Oleh from a distance. And then it was the end of July.

"If you ask me what day it is today, no matter what is outside the window - autumn, winter, spring, or summer - I am stuck with the date 29.07.2022. On the night of July 29-30, the Russian Federation published data on the dead and wounded in Olenivka. Oleh was on two lists," the woman recalls that terrible day.

"Everything turned upside down inside, her thoughts were like on the scales of 'I believe – I don't believe'. Every day, she spent hours watching videos from hospitals, and on August 17, she saw her husband. She screamed. She paused the video and froze. She was afraid she was going crazy. Was it really him on the screen? Or did she imagine that?

"He has lost a lot of weight, but it is impossible not to recognize his voice, eyes, and facial expressions. He and his comrades talked about Olenivka, but no one blamed Ukraine. Although they may have been forced to do it. When I heard him, and saw him, I wanted to run to that hospital in Donetsk. It's terrible when you can't do anything about it. A year has passed, but the feelings are the same because my husband and others are still in captivity."

The last news about him arrived in December 2022. Together with Oleh, there was a soldier in the hospital who was later returned to Ukraine within the exchange. Oleh asked him to tell his family that he was alive.

"I believed that international organizations would visit the victims of the terrorist attack, get true lists, that the seriously wounded would be taken from hospitals to a third country, but this never happened. Not in a month, not in a year," the woman went from disappointment to an assertion that she must save her husband by herself.

Through their NGO, The Olenivka Families Community, she and other families tell the world about the victims of the brutal terrorist attack in Olenivka.

Their daughter has already learned to run, but she grows up with no father.

Uliana and Vitalii, "When a person dies, it doesn't mean that no one loves them"

"I will go on if I survive," Vitalii Lytvyn wrote to his fiancée from besieged Mariupol.

He worked as a driver for the Azov special forces unit. In Mariupol, he evacuated the wounded and dead. Then, he ended up at Azovstal.

Uliana Osinnia tells us about her loved one, with whom she has been in a relationship for eight years. They have been in love since childhood. They started dating when Uliana was 13, and Vitalii was 16. They are both from Pavlohrad. They dreamed of an apartment and two dogs. They were going to get married and have "beautiful children like you."

"You are the best thing I have. Come back," she wrote a letter to her beloved, sending it into the unknown.

At that time, five months had passed since Vitaliy was taken prisoner by the Russian occupiers in the Olenivka colony.

Last year, on June 5, he turned 24. A little more than a month later, on July 30, Uliana saw the name 'Lytvyn' on the list of the dead. It was the last name listed.

Later, she learned that he had survived that terrible night. But in the morning, he bled to death on the way to the hospital.

At first, his parents, sisters, grandparents, and Uliana hoped it was a mistake. Over the months, hope was transforming into despair back and forth. However, in October last year, the Russians handed over 18 bodies of Ukrainian defenders. DNA examinations were conducted, one and then another one. It turned out that one of the dead was Lytvyn.

"He is the strongest and smartest person I have ever known. I love him very much. He is better than anyone else alive. A person has died, but it doesn't mean that no one loves them. He would have been the kindest father, he really wanted children, he had to come back. He went through Mariupol, Azovstal, but the terrorist country took his life…" Uliana exhales bitterly.

She dreams that all those who ordered the Azov service members to go into captivity and guaranteed that nothing would happen to them would be brought before her so she could spit in their faces.

"We, the family, were constantly told that the Azovstal defenders would not be tortured because the whole world knows about them. A year has passed. The wounded from barrack 200 have not been returned, and the bodies have not yet been buried. I really want a fair punishment for all those involved in the deaths of our heroes. I also want all the prisoners to be exchanged so that the guys could tell about the last words of my Vitalik. And I ask everyone: let's not forget about Olenivka, it's a crime against humanity. The best were killed there."

Last week, Uliana Osinnia turned 22. Three days later, she buried her fiancé at Pavlohrad cemetery.