Ukrainian woman fights on after 65 days in bomb shelter with baby 

Almost two years after she and her young son went into hiding under a bunker in Ukraine, Anna Tsaytsava took the stage and delivered a defiant message to a crowded auditorium in the Reichstag.

“I know that right now, at this very moment, the Russians are committing real genocide against the Ukrainian state,” she said Wednesday. “But please don’t think of us as a nation of victims. We are Ukrainians, a nation of fighters, and we will fight for victory.”

Zaitseva and her son Svyatoslav, now two years old, survived for 65 days in a crowded shelter at the Azovstal steel works in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. They were part of a group of civilians who were evacuated while Ukrainian soldiers defended the factory from the Russians early in the war.

The last defenders of the steel mill to surrender to Russia in Mariupol in the spring of 2022 became a symbol of resistance that year. Zaitseva has emerged as one of the city’s most resilient survivors after turning her harrowing experience into passionate global advocacy in support of Ukraine.

Zaitseva, 26, plans to return to Ukraine to become a paramedic. And she is also fighting tirelessly for the freedom of her husband Kirillo Zaitsev, a Ukrainian soldier who remains in Russian captivity, along with other Mariupol soldiers captured in 2022.

“I am grateful to the soldiers, to the garrison of Mariupol, because they saved my life,” she told The Hill. “Right now, I have to do the same because around 2,000 Mariupol defenders are still detained.”

On Tuesday, Zaitseva traveled to New York to meet with United Nations member states for talks on securing the release of more prisoners. She is also involved in a book project about the experience of the siege of Mariupol called “Heart of Mariupol”.

Zaitseva still struggles with the pain of her experience, as does her son.

Particularly painful as Saturday approaches the second anniversary of the war, which also marks the day the first bombs began falling on Mariupol. Zaitseva said she and her son still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which she explained is even more difficult for young children to deal with.

“It’s difficult. It’s virtually impossible,” she said. “He has problems with sleep and noise. For example, if you make a little noise, he puts his hands over his ears to protect himself.”

On February 25, 2022, the day after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Zaitseva and her two-month-old son took shelter in the basement of the Azovstal Steel Plant to protect themselves from Russian bombing. hurried to.

The shelter was small and overcrowded, with dark hallways lined with sleeping mats and bunks. There was little medicine, food, or water available to keep everyone healthy. Zaitseva estimated about 75 people were in the shelter, including 17 children.

Caring for Zaitseva’s son became a priority for the shelter community. The Ukrainian military worked hard to get formula to her young son, but the experience was difficult.

“I cried because this was the worst feeling in the world. I see that my children are hungry and I can’t do anything,” she said. “It is truly a shame for the world that even in the 21st century, children are still suffering because of hunger and children are suffering because of missile attacks.”

It was too dangerous to leave the shelter, Zaitseva said, as bombs were constantly landing across Mariupol and at least one escape was blocked. Inside, people struggled to keep the air raid shelters lit, and without blankets it was so cold that they were forced to wear steelwork uniforms to keep warm, and shards of broken glass from bombings filled the air raid shelters. It was scattered.

On April 30, an agreement was finally reached to evacuate civilians through a humanitarian corridor. The Russian soldiers were accompanied by UN and Red Cross humanitarian workers into the factory.

However, Zaitseva was not yet free. She had to pass through a filtration camp, where she was forced to strip naked as Russians searched her for Nazi tattoos, she said. Zaitseva said she was interrogated by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

While in the camp, Zaitseva was forbidden to speak Ukrainian. And she spent at least one night at the school, where she heard the Russians say they wanted to kill Ukrainian soldiers.

“It was terrible,” she said.

She finally secured freedom from Russian forces after reaching neutral territory around the city of Zaporizhzhia, and eventually fell into Ukrainian hands.

Ms. Zaitseva currently lives in Berlin, Germany. Her parents live in Kiev. And her husband is still in captivity in Russia.

“I have no news about my husband,” she said. “The prisoner is prohibited from speaking, making phone calls, or exchanging letters with her relatives.”

Zaitseva pointed out that this was a violation. Part of the Geneva ConventionIt calls on authorities to allow prisoners to contact relatives and loved ones.

Zaitseva also lamented the destruction of the city where she grew up, a once-bustling coastal town on the Sea of ​​Azov that connects to the Black Sea. Like other Ukrainian cities that endured heavy fighting, Mariupol was reduced to rubble.

“They raped my city, they killed my city,” she said.

Zaitseva’s experience attracted international media attention because she was willing to share details in fluent English about the horrors she faced to shed light on Russian aggression.

Her story was further told by Russian-born Israeli-American director Evgeny Afinevsky, who made the documentary “Winter on Fire” about Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution.

Zaitseva’s account is featured in the 2022 film “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom,” which depicts the Russian invasion of the same year and its continuing impact across Ukraine.

Afinevsky said he wanted Zaitseva to appear in the documentary because in her work Zaitseva tries to build “human bridges between humans.”

“For me, it is very important to give voice to mothers in Ukraine,” he said. “Connecting with other mothers allows them to feel the pain and feel what she goes through every night. … That’s the human bridge I tried to build.”

Zaitseva’s story is also included in the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation’s Museum of Civilian Voices, which records the stories of Ukrainian civilians affected by the conflict with Russia dating back to 2014.

Zaitseva is confident in Ukraine’s fight. He called on the U.S. to pass a new aid package for Ukraine, which remains stalled amid Republican demands over the southern border.

“The United States must help us,” he said, “because, first of all, Ukraine is now a shield against Russian actions, a shield that protects the entire civilized world.” “We’re not asking you to die. [our] Dear country, please supply us with more weapons.

“Only in that way can we achieve victory,” she added. “I believe in victory. Otherwise, if we don’t win, the entire civilized world may collapse.”

After a private screening of “Freedom on Fire” this week at the Reichstag, Afinevsky invited Zaitseva to share his thoughts.

Zaitseva has just survived a frightening experience in a shelter, and she exudes an energy and confidence that doesn’t come across in documentary interviews. Footage from her days underground in Azovstal shows her trying to survive in the dark with her young son in her arms.

“I’m here to do this [represent] The voice of the voiceless, the voice of prisoners of war. My husband is among them,” she said on Capitol Hill. “We don’t even know if our relatives are alive. We don’t know under what circumstances it will be held.

“We are here to remind you that we need your help in the process of returning our relatives, the process of returning our heroes.”

After a round of applause, she had two final words. “Slava Ukraine!”