Letter from 18 captured Ukrainian presidents...

Hello, my dear parents, sister and everyone who still remembers me!

It's an early summer morning in Rostov, and the sunlight that penetrates the camera allows me to write this message and believe that you will be able to read it For us, 18 fighters of the 24th Separate Assault Battalion "Aidar" (including two women), everything is as usual. Nothing changes... Wake up, cell toss, breakfast, walk (maybe interrogation, maybe not), dinner and rest. And a dream in which each of us sees the moment when we will be home again and will be able to hug our loved ones. A dream that has remained an unfulfilled dream for almost three years now. A dream that keeps the consciousness running and does not allow the will to break... And also the hope that our native Ukraine has not forgotten about us and is doing everything to make sure we return home as soon as possible. Like, for example, the Azov soldiers... After all, each of us had our own "Mariupol" in which we defended Ukraine to the last bullet! We had our "Mariupol" in the village of Hranitne, Donetsk region, where we accepted the fight on February 26-28, 2022, did not retreat and were captured in early March. We quickly learned how our former countrymen, who became DPR militants, had forgotten how their grandfathers fought for peace, but with the help of visitant specialists from Russia, they had learned to use torture from the NKVD arsenal very well... Different thoughts came to mind at that moment, but none of us broke down and took the step that our enemies may have expected us to take. And then the so-called "trial" began, during which we were more than clearly hinted that the death penalty was what we deserved. In October 2022, the "DPR prosecutor's office" completed the investigation and transferred the case to the Donetsk court. 

After the annexation of the DPR by the Russian Federation in September-October 2022, the charges were reclassified in accordance with the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and we were taken to Rostov-on-Don. The trial began on July 25, 2023 in the Southern District Military Court...

It would be a waste of time to analyse a trial that is being conducted under the rules of the Mirror-World.

This criminal case has no event and components of crime. This is a demonstrative trial of Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen who participated in repelling the Russian attack. The two women mentioned earlier, Maryna Mishchenko and Liliia Prutian, who provided medical care to the wounded, are being tried for maintaining the combat capability of the unit. Comments are unnecessary...

But what really interests us every moment we spend in captivity is what is our country doing to bring us back home? They say that the last time official Kyiv mentioned the prisoners of the Aidar battalion (that is, us) was on July 20, 2023, when Armed Forces Colonel Anatolii Shtefan published an official commentary on the work to free the battalion's fighters... And what's next? Another year has passed... Is it really only our relatives who are doing the main work to keep this issue from disappearing from the information space? By communicating with each other and passing on news that leaks through the walls of the Rostov detention center in fragments, they support each other in anticipation of a "miracle." That we would be included in the exchange list, which has not been done even once in these 2.5 years... That despite the fact that the killer country has not responded to the request of the Ukrainian side to confirm whether we, 18 Aidar fighters, are really in captivity, local inventors will not transfer us to the status of "missing" and our families will stop receiving payments, which for many of them are the only source of subsistence... And finally, the current Ukrainian authorities will stop being afraid that the fighters who live the national idea of a free, prosperous and dignified Ukraine, and it does not matter whether they are from Azov or Aidar, are not enemies of the state and should not be "executed" to the front line or forgotten to be released from captivity.... 

The current president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, once said that every Ukrainian is a president.

We, 18 Ukrainian presidents from Rostov (and we are not Yanukovych's descendants!!!), have fulfilled our duty to the end and are now waiting for another one to do the same. Volodymyr Oleksandrovych, bring us back home!!!!!

I will end here. Be healthy, my dear ones...

With faith in our victory, your loving sons and daughters who are now in captivity in the Rostov detention center and are waiting to return to Ukraine: Haiokha Ihor, Hruzynov Vitalii, Yermolinskyi Vladyslav, Zabairachnyi Semen, Kalinchenko Serhii, Makarenko Volodymyr, Nedostupa Roman, Nikitiuk Serhii, Radchenko Taras, Taranets Oleksandr, Chupryna Mykola, Baidiuk Viacheslav, Krokhalov Vitalii, Mishchenko Maryna, Prutian Liliia, Piatyhorets Yevhen, Fedchenko Dmytro, Sholik Andrii.