Released Ukrainian prisoner of war reveals torment at the hands of Russians
When Ukrainian marine, Mikhailo Dianov, was released from Russian detention, his photo shocked the world.
His body was emaciated after four months as a prisoner of war.
When I met him, he was unrecognisable from the photos I’d seen of the well-built fighter in Mariupol, Ukraine. His clothes hung from his frail frame. His gaunt face seemed far older than his 42 years.
I had so many questions. Crucially, did you worry you wouldn’t survive?
“We thought about this every day,” Mikhailo tells me. “We first started having those thoughts at the Azovstal steel plant.
“At Azovstal we thought it was the end.”
Ukraine forces Russian troops out of critical town – live updates
Mikhailo was taken following weeks under siege in Mariupol defending the steel works. It was the last corner of the city to fall in May.
He was among 215 recently released in a high-profile prisoner swap with Russia, and spoke exclusively with Sky News about captivity.
“Believe me, after a month of being starved, when you close your eyes, you forget about your family, about your country, about everything. The only thing you think about is food.”
‘They treated us like animals’
Mikhailo lost 40kg (more than six stone) in weight in his four months as a prisoner of war.
“It was impossible to eat. You were given 30 seconds for each meal,” says Mikhailo. “In 30 seconds you had to eat everything you could.
The day of his release
“Bread was deliberately very hard. Guys who had their teeth knocked out couldn’t manage to eat in time.
“It was 30 seconds, and then you had to stop. Then you had to get up straight away and run. It was like that all the time.
“They treated us like animals.”
The meals sound pitiful, and the process of eating utterly humiliating.
This all took place in the Olenivka prison in Russian-controlled Donetsk – a place Mikhailo refers to as a concentration camp.
It clearly seems prisoners of war being held there are being starved deliberately.
Read more:
The fall of Mariupol
Ukrainian prisoners taken from Azovstal
Prisoners were ‘beaten with sticks and given electric shocks’
He describes how they would be thrown in solitary confinement and tortured for picking up a berry from the ground and eating it.
He says they were beaten with sticks, given electric shocks and had needles put under their nails
The layout of the prison has concentration camp connotations, too.
From the air, satellite images reveal identical blocks in a row where prisoners are housed.
Mikahilo says the blocks are designed for 150 people, but he was packed into one with 800 other prisoners.
The conditions were so cramped, his leg muscles wasted and walking is now a challenge. We don’t walk far together and soon find a bench for him to rest.
It is very hard for us to verify what is happening in Olenivka prison due to the lack of access to Russian controlled areas.
We’ve spoken to the partner of another Azovstal fighter who was released in the same prisoner swap. She describes similar conditions and also refers to the place as a concentration camp.
Then there’s Mikhailo’s physical condition, which speaks for itself.
One thing we do know about Olenivka prison is it was bombed in July and more than 50 people were killed. I ask Mikhailo about the attack.
The steel plant was almost completely destroyed
He’d been at a different location at the time, receiving treatment on his arm. He describes a reckless operation carried out with a pair of pliers and no anaesthesia.
Before he was taken prisoner, a photo at Azovstal shows Mikhailo with a bandage on his broken right arm. During his time in captivity, the bone healed in a semicircle due to a lack of medical care.
Then this – the moment he was released.
“We were stripped completely naked. They took off our medical casts, everything. They searched us. And then we had to squat like that for five hours. Without a bench, of course.
“We simply waited. We didn’t know what was going to happen to us,” says Mikhailo.
He has a large graze at the top of his nose. I ask what happened.
“Duct tape,” he replies. “They wrapped tape around my head and pushed their legs into my stomach, so they could make it tighter, and I spent a day, a day and a half like that.”
Relatives and friends of defenders of the Azovstal steel works campaigned for their release
‘A lot of things have lost their value’
He travelled for 36 hours with his eyes taped with no idea where he was going – moved from a bus to an aeroplane to a bus again.
It was only after the tape was finally removed that he realised he was back in Ukraine.
He now needs to gain 20kg before he can have corrective surgery on his arm.
The psychological impact will likely take far longer to treat.
“Everyone is traumatised,” he tells me, “I consider myself to be a mentally strong person, but for me a lot of things have lost their value.”
The picture he’s painted of Russian detention is far worse than many imagined.
Many of the conditions described are against the Geneva Conventions. And thousands more Ukrainian prisoners of war are understood to still be in Olenivka prison.
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It’s been a confusing week.
The Monday gathering of European leaders and Ukraine’s president with Donald Trump at the White House was highly significant.
Ukraine latest: Trump changes tack
The leaders went home buoyed by the knowledge that they’d finally convinced the American president not to abandon Europe. He had committed to provide American “security guarantees” to Ukraine.
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European leaders sit down with Trump for talks
The details were sketchy, and sketched out only a little more through the week (we got some noise about American air cover), but regardless, the presidential commitment represented a clear shift from months of isolationist rhetoric on Ukraine – “it’s Europe’s problem” and all the rest of it.
Yet it was always the case that, beyond that clear achievement for the Europeans, Russia would have a problem with it.
Trump’s envoy’s language last weekend – claiming that Putin had agreed to Europe providing “Article 5-like” guarantees for Ukraine, essentially providing it with a NATO-like collective security blanket – was baffling.
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Trump: No US troops on ground in Ukraine
Russia gives two fingers to the president
And throughout this week, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly and predictably undermined the whole thing, pointing out that Russia would never accept any peace plan that involved any European or NATO troops in Ukraine.
“The presence of foreign troops in Ukraine is completely unacceptable for Russia,” he said yesterday, echoing similar statements stretching back years.
Remember that NATO’s “eastern encroachment” was the justification for Russia’s “special military operation” – the invasion of Ukraine – in the first place. All this makes Trump look rather weak.
It’s two fingers to the president, though interestingly, the Russian language has been carefully calibrated not to poke Trump but to mock European leaders instead. That’s telling.
Read more on Ukraine:
Trump risks ‘very big mistake’
NATO-like promise for Ukraine may be too good to be true
Europe tried to starve Putin’s war machine – it didn’t go as planned
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Europe ‘undermining’ Ukraine talks
The bilateral meeting (between Putin and Zelenskyy) hailed by Trump on Monday as agreed and close – “within two weeks” – looks decidedly doubtful.
Maybe that’s why he went along with Putin’s suggestion that there be a bilateral, not including Trump, first.
It’s easier for the American president to blame someone else if it’s not his meeting, and it doesn’t happen.
NATO defence chiefs met on Wednesday to discuss the details of how the security guarantees – the ones Russia won’t accept – will work.
European sources at the meeting have told me it was all a great success. And to the comments by Lavrov, a source said: “It’s not up to Lavrov to decide on security guarantees. Not up to the one doing the threatening to decide how to deter that threat!”
The argument goes that it’s not realistic for Russia to say from which countries Ukraine can and cannot host troops.
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Sky’s Mark Stone takes you inside Zelenskyy-Trump 2.0
Would Trump threaten force?
The problem is that if Europe and the White House want Russia to sign up to some sort of peace deal, then it would require agreement from all sides on the security arrangements.
The other way to get Russia to heel would be with an overwhelming threat of force. Something from Trump, like: “Vladimir – look what I did to Iran…”. But, of course, Iran isn’t a nuclear power.
Something else bothers me about all this. The core concept of a “security guarantee” is an ironclad obligation to defend Ukraine into the future.
Future guarantees would require treaties, not just a loose promise. I don’t see Trump’s America truly signing up to anything that obliges them to do anything.
A layered security guarantee which builds over time is an option, but from a Kremlin perspective, would probably only end up being a repeat of history and allow them another “justification” to push back.
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Image and reality don’t seem to match
Among Trump’s stream of social media posts this week was an image of him waving his finger at Putin in Alaska. It was one of the few non-effusive images from the summit.
He posted it next to an image of former president Richard Nixon confronting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – an image that came to reflect American dominance over the Soviet Union.
Pic: Truth Social
That may be the image Trump wants to portray. But the events of the past week suggest image and reality just don’t match.
The past 24 hours in Ukraine have been among the most violent to date.
At least 17 people were killed after a car bombing and an attack on a police helicopter in Colombia, officials have said.
Authorities in the southwest city of Cali said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30.
Pics: AP
Authorities said at least 12 died in the attack on a helicopter transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, where they were to destroy coca leaf crops – the raw material used in the production of cocaine.
Antioquia governor Andres Julian said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.
Read more from Sky News:
Man charged after fatal stabbing of ice cream seller
Trump changes tack with renewed attack over Ukraine
Pic: AP
Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.
Both FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan operate in Antioquia.
It comes as a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.
The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the UN’s latest available report.
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