'Projected release date: 2050'. How a fiancée fights for her Azov fighter sentenced by Russia to 28 years in prison

After the May ceasefire, Alla and Oleksiy’s mother hoped he would be exchanged as someone who had been in captivity since 2022. But he was not among the 205 Ukrainian prisoners Russia returned on May 15, 2026.

“In these four years, regarding Lyosha’s return, I have met with everyone except Zelenskyy and Putin,” Alla says.

On the Vizicom map, the Kirovsk penal colony building looks like a bizarre polygon. Somewhere inside is the cell where Oleksiy Zhernovskyi is held.

“Does he remember me? Does he know I am waiting? Or maybe he does not love me anymore? These thoughts haunted me for years. But when the guys who were imprisoned with him returned, they brought me flowers at his request and spoke to me in words that Lyosha used to signal: he remembers and loves me. Well, I hope so,” Alla says, lowering her voice.

Oleksiy’s fifth year in captivity has begun. It is the fifth year of unbearable longing and enormous hope for two women — fiancée Alla and his mother Oksana.

Last date

Oksana took the documents for Oleksiy’s admission to the Military College for Sergeants to Lviv together with her son. It was during the Anti-Terrorist Operation period, and studying at the college meant ending up on the front lines with 100 percent certainty.

“Oleksiy dreamed of Azov and wanted to serve there later. About the war, he would say: ‘If it is necessary, then it is necessary, because who else if not us,’” Oksana recalls.

And indeed, her son achieved service in Azov. Once, between shifts in Mariupol, he noticed Alla’s photo from Volnovakha on a dating site.

“I received a notification that someone liked my photo. I looked at his picture — bearded, tall, with such kind eyes. So I liked him back. After that, he wrote to me. The conversation started and, to my surprise, continued. My interest in Lyosha kept growing,” Alla says.

Two or three months later, he invited her for the weekend to Mariupol to swim in the sea — it was the height of summer. That was their first time meeting in person. And about two weeks after that swim, he proposed to her.

“I was very confused, but before I could come to my senses, Lyosha started coming to my work in Volnovakha with surprise flowers when I least expected it. Then he suggested I move in with him in Mariupol and found an apartment for us. I had doubts — moving to another city, changing jobs, a person I actually knew so little.

But when you fall in love, you fall in love with every cell of his body, every move he makes, simply everything. And I moved to Mariupol. Oleksiy had just been sent to positions in Luhansk Oblast. I arrived at the apartment, where he was not there. But he had prepared everything carefully for my arrival: it was spotless with a bouquet of chrysanthemums. It was so touching,” Alla’s voice softens with the memories.

Overnight into February 24, 2022, Oleksiy and Alla were supposed to fly to Egypt. His command had let him go on vacation on one condition: he had to return at the first call from the unit.

On February 21, they stopped by in Yahotyn at Oleksiy’s mother’s house. But just a few hours after arriving, his commander called him back to Mariupol.

“My son ran to me at work. He only managed to hug me and say he was leaving his most precious thing — Alla — under my care,” Oksana says.

Alla wanted to go with him — she insisted she was not familiar enough with his family to stay, that she had only spoken with his mother in messengers, and that it was simply awkward and in general... But Oleksiy insisted: "You are staying, and I will be back soon.”

“I was very scared — unfamiliar people, a strange house, I had only a handful of things for Egypt, some swimsuits... I was stepping into nowhere. Then in the evening, Mama Oksana came home from work — she came up to me, hugged me, and started crying. And I burst into tears from the emotions, too. And that was it. That is how we met, how our life together with her began,” Alla says, and even now, more than four years later, there are tears in her voice.

The Red Cross records

Before dawn on February 24, she received a message from Oleksiy from Mariupol: “Bunny, that’s it, it started.” On March 1, contact with him disappeared.

“I was simply going crazy the whole time. I sent him 100 or 500 messages a day on Telegram. ‘Where are you? How are you? Just write, I am praying.’ But my messages hung there — there was no connection with him. Then a marine infantryman who was with Lyosha at the position contacted me, saying Oleksiy asked him to write that he was fine and that he loves you,” Alla says.

On the morning of May 18, Alla heard his voice for the last time. Oleksiy said he was going into captivity, that he was sending her his photos and money. After their conversation, he would destroy the phone, and there would be no more contact. He also asked her to transfer a certain amount to the card of a fallen brother-in-arms’ wife...

And that was it. Oleksiy’s captivity began for Oleksiy, Alla, and Oksana. No one knew it would last for years.

On May 18, 2022, during the exit of fighters from Azovstal, representatives of the International Red Cross registered Oleksiy as a prisoner of war and recorded Alla’s phone number. Two weeks later, the Red Cross informed her that prisoner of war Oleksiy Zhernovskyi is in Olenivka.

When the terrorist attack happened in Olenivka, the Russians published a list of dead and wounded prisoners. Oleksiy was not among them. It was then that Alla received a message from someone that Oleksiy was alive.

“Those were terrible days. Azov commanders were also in captivity. Higher command was not providing any information. Families of the prisoners did not even know whom to contact to get any details. The Coordination Headquarters had already been created, but at that time it also had nothing concrete,” Alla says.

Oksana filed a statement with the police. When a criminal case was opened regarding the missing Oleksiy Zhernovskyi, she provided biological material for DNA analysis. Meanwhile, relatives of Azov fighters began gathering for actions on Maidan Nezalezhnosti. Alla and Oksana did not attend the first ones.

“When something like this happens, you do not understand how to act correctly: what will harm the prisoner and what will help. You are trapped in uncertainty — and then you reproach yourself for not doing this or, on the contrary, for doing that, and because of it he might be worse off in captivity. You are disoriented, and no one knows for sure which behavior of yours will be effective,” Alla shares her doubts from that time.

"It's you again"

In September 2022, the wife of Oleksiy’s brother-in-arms called her, asking to urgently check a Russian Telegram channel. There, in a Russian video about a Donetsk hospital, Alla saw Oleksiy.

“He was emaciated, with a bandaged wounded arm. The Russians say it is not just a hospital but a place where wounded Azov terrorists are held. They ask Oleksiy provocative questions, like against which enemies he fought here. It was very scary. But Mama Oksana and I at least learned he was in a Donetsk hospital. We reported it to the investigator and the Coordination Headquarters. We thought this information would somehow speed up Oleksiy’s exchange. We were wrong,” Alla says, her voice again sounding hollow with regret.

When some Azov commanders returned from captivity, at a meeting at the Coordination Headquarters they said there had been an agreement with Russia to exchange prisoners within the next three or four months after the exit from Azovstal, and that lists of our prisoners had been drawn up long ago. And that we should hope for the best.

“At that time, families of prisoners were still so new to exchange matters. They believed every word that gave hope. They hoped that if commanders had been returned, everyone would be returned soon. We really believed in the capabilities of the Coordination Headquarters, and at that time it began holding regular meetings with us only at the request of the prisoners’ families.

How many times over these years have I traveled to those meetings! Iryna Vereshchuk and Kyrylo Budanov already knew me by sight and greeted me with the words: ‘Oh, it is you again.’ Yes, me again. And again with no success.

Now the Coordination Headquarters understands the situation well and has gained experience, as have we. It understands that the promises ‘we will definitely return everyone’ no longer work for us. And it cannot offer us anything more concrete,” Alla says, sighing.

According to her, every time lists for exchange are compiled, the Coordination Headquarters assures her that Oleksiy is on them — sometimes as seriously wounded, sometimes as the one who has been in captivity the longest. The lists are compiled, sent to Russia, and to no avail.

Twice convicted

In November 2023, messages appeared on Russian sites that the so-called supreme court of the “DPR” had sentenced Azov fighter Oleksiy Zhernovskyi to 24 years in a strict-regime colony. Among the charges was the shooting of a civilian woman in Mariupol.

“You remember how the Russians set up cages in Mariupol for show trials of Azov fighters. And families of Azov fighters began sounding all the alarms so that our authorities and foreign countries would somehow prevent this. But at the Coordination Headquarters, we were told then that it was even better if the trial took place, because after the trial, the prisoners would return more quickly. They said Russian propagandists would film their movie about the trials, and then our prisoners would no longer be needed by them. But those were mistaken assumptions again,” Alla says.

She learned about Oleksiy's first trial online. She was scrolling through Instagram, saw our prisoners behind bars, and one looked like Oleksiy. She enlarged the photo — it was definitely him! That same day, the Red Cross informed her about the trial and the sentence for Oleksiy. And she went to the Coordination Headquarters.

“And literally a few months later, in 2024, Oleksiy’s commander, who had been exchanged, said that a second sentence awaited Lyosha — for terrorism. And under the second sentence, from April 2024, Oleksiy’s prison term was increased to 28 years. I was simply in panic,” Alla recalls.

From December 2023, she joined weekly actions by families of Azov fighters, urging the authorities to make efforts to free the prisoners. And when she learned about the possibility of a second sentence for Oleksiy, together with Tetiana Vyshniak, whose son also faced a Russian trial, she began organizing actions outside the Office of the President. They stood holding cardboard signs that read: “Hear the Illegally Convicted.”

“No one from the Office of the President ever came out to us,” Alla says bitterly.

In 2024, she says, she went to actions outside the Coordination Headquarters almost every day — from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., with reminder placards that Oleksiy had been illegally convicted.

That same year, with Tetiana Vyshniak and the wives of two other convicted men, supported by the Association of Families of Azovstal Defenders, she traveled to the Vatican and had a meeting with the Pope where they told him about the prisoners, handed over the relevant lists, showed photos of Azov fighters before and during captivity so the Pontiff would understand the conditions in which Ukrainian prisoners are held.

“Whom have I not met with regarding Oleksiy and the convicted Azov fighters! Only with representatives of the Coordination Headquarters, probably a thousand times. And with the Security Service, and with the human rights commissioner, and with National Guard command, and with Interior Ministry employees. And abroad — with senators in Italy, with politicians and the public in Warsaw and Krakow, and in Geneva. We, the relatives of prisoners, wrote appeals to the leaders of Turkiye and the Arab Emirates,” Alla says.

Russia is churning out sentences

From Russian sources, Ukrainian POWs returning home, and even Russian human rights activists now living in Europe—Alla and Oleksiy’s mother gather every scrap of information they can. Oleksiy was held in the Donetsk pre-trial detention center, then, after his first trial, he was transferred to Makiyivka, where the occupation administration set up a colony for convicted prisoners of war. Then back to the Donetsk detention center for a second trial, and now he’s in the Kirov colony.

Families of imprisoned Ukrainian prisoners of war created the nongovernmental organization Freedom to Ukrainian Prisoners of War, which is a member of the public council at the Coordination Headquarters.

“To help you understand, every week we send lists of illegally convicted prisoners to all our state institutions. The situation with Azov fighters is very sad. Since the beginning of the year, there are already plus 60 convicted Azov fighters. In total, there are about 250 of them. There are many who received as many as three sentences from the Russians. They are convicted of terrorism and sent to the most remote prisons in Russia — even to the Arctic, where they sit together with criminals. They are handed down enormous terms: 18, 20, 25 years. And during exchanges, only one or two people from the category of illegally convicted Azov fighters return each time. If we take the latest exchange on May 15, the Russians gave back only one convicted prisoner — Tetiana Vyshniak’s son,” Alla reveals the horror of the situation.

Oleksiy’s exchanged brothers-in-arms who were with him in captivity find them themselves after returning home. The latest information from them concerned events in 2025: that Lyosha’s arm had not healed properly, but he is holding on, doing physical exercises, supporting the guys, and learning English with them.

Alla and Oksana live on these crumbs of information.

“When, during the May ceasefire, an exchange in the ‘1,000 for 1,000’ format was announced, we all somehow thought it was about the guys from the Mariupol garrison, since they have been in captivity the longest. The announced ‘thousand’ is still not closed. There is still hope, but I simply want to put a gun to the negotiator’s head and shout: if Oleksiy does not return, you will not leave here alive. Because emotions are already overflowing. Patience is coming to an end. How long can we believe the authorities’ promises? Four years — this is no longer a joke,” Alla says, unable to contain her emotions.

"I'll give it all, just bring them back"

What hurts Oksana is not only the fifth year of her son’s captivity. The fourth year has begun since her husband, Ihor Levin, a fighter from the 30th Brigade, went missing near Bakhmut. Since 2023, the family has heard nothing about Ihor. She had a husband — and then he was gone...

“Sometimes, acquaintances reproach me that I receive money for both my son and my husband. Good people, it would be better never to have such money! I will give you those bank cards, I will give everything — just bring back my son and my husband,” Oksana says, distressed.

She continues to go to work, calling it labor therapy. And Alla has become a sort of home lawyer. She fights for Oleksiy and for Ihor: letters, inquiries, and trips to various institutions and events.

“All my life, I dreamed of a daughter. Now I have one. Alla calls me Mom, and I call her daughter. It somehow started on its own. Sometimes I call her from the yard: ‘Alla!’ Then she runs up and asks: ‘Mom, what have I done wrong that you are calling me Alla instead of daughter?’ You know how it often is with us: Alla comes into the room, lies down next to me, and we talk about everything: about Oleksiy, Ihor, my younger son who is in the Armed Forces. I cry. I try to hide from Alla because then she starts crying too,” Oksana shares her private thoughts.

She does not know that Alla also hides her tears from her. On exchange days, to keep from going crazy with worry, she starts baking cakes or pastries so she looks at the phone as little as possible and does not tear her heart apart. And when emotions overwhelm her, she goes to walk the dogs — they do not let her cry, they calm her, licking the tears of despair from her face.

On one Russian website, Oleksiy Zhernovskyi’s entry lists an estimated release date of 2050.