'We could not recover from what we saw': Photos of Ukrainian soldiers after captivity posted online
Pictures of Ukrainian soldiers after captivity were posted online (illustrative photo / Facebook com NGUmainpage)
Photographers Kostyantyn and Vlada Liberov published photos of Ukrainian soldiers who returned from Russian captivity, according to the photographers' post on Instagram.
What Ukrainian soldiers look like after captivity
"These photos are of Ukrainian soldiers after Russian captivity. It was our most difficult shoot in the last six months. After meeting and talking with the guys, we could not recover from what we saw and heard for a week," the photographers wrote.
They noted that they published the footage with the permission of the former prisoners.
"I remember one of them telling me: we have to do everything to make sure this never happens to others again," the Liberovs add.
Some of these photos will be presented in Switzerland at the Peace Summit, where the issue of all-for-all exchanges was raised. The photographers hope that these images will encourage our partners to act decisively.
"We cannot retell what we heard from the guys. But these photos speak for themselves. And this is even though by the time we met them, the guys had gained 10 kg of weight in a week at home. To realize what it is like to lose 40-50 kg of weight (which is how much they lost during their captivity), look at the pictures where the guys show their photos before the captivity," Kostyantyn and Vlada wrote.
According to them, despite all the horror that the soldiers went through in captivity, they were not broken.
"We talked to doctors at the rehabilitation center where the guys were staying at the time of our meeting. According to them, most of those who have been in captivity get over it over time. The first weeks in their native land are a state of euphoria from the realization that they survived. In this case, in addition to really professional rehabilitation therapists with an incredibly humane attitude to the guys, professional psychologists also work with them," the Liberovs noted.
They added that these photos are evidence of the largest genocide in Europe since World War II.
We would like to add that during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 2,200 Ukrainian soldiers were returned, but our defenders are still in Russia. Data on their number varies.
