Ukraine War: ‘We’d Expected to Die in Mariupol With Rifles in Our Hands’

For nearly three months, the eyes of the world were on him and his men, the brave “defenders of Mariupol”, as they came under a relentless enemy assault, eventually being surrounded and trapped in the Azovstal steel works.

Awarded the prestigious “Hero of Ukraine” decoration from President Zelensky, Colonel Denys Prokopenko and his soldiers repeatedly defied the much larger and better equipped Russian forces. In fact, members of the elite Azov Brigade had pledged to fight to the last man in the military unit’s home city in south-eastern Ukraine.

Eventually, however, Col Prokopenko obeyed orders from Kyiv’s military headquarters and surrendered, largely so more than 300 seriously-wounded men could receive vital medical care. Some 950 Azov soldiers, including Col Prokopenko, were taken as Prisoners of War (POWs).

That was more than two years ago and yet today Col Prokopenko, freed under a prisoner exchange deal, and his elite, battle-hardened men are still fighting and killing Russian troops on the frontline.

I met Col Prokopenko, often known to his comrades by his call sign of “Redis”, and his trusted deputy, Lieutenant Col Bohdan Krotevych, at a secret location near the frontline in the Donbas region, just hours after their Azov men had fought off a determined enemy attack.

Both men joined Azov as volunteer junior soldiers ten years ago – in the summer of 2014 – when Russia was illegally occupying Ukrainian land in Crimea and the Donbas. Now the two officers lead one of the most respected fighting forces in the world – Col Prokopenko, 33, as the commander of Azov, and Lt Col Krotevych, 31, as chief of staff.

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I wondered whether both men had considered stepping back from serving – feeling they had done enough for their country – either during or after their brutal four-month captivity when, according to Lt Col Krotevych, they were badly beaten soon after their capture and then spent the rest of their time in solitary confinement in a Russian prison.

“No, never,” said Col Prokopenko. In fact, his darkest hour came on May 20 2022 when he reluctantly surrendered to the Russians. “I had expected to die in the Azovstal steel works but I followed my orders to surrender and it was the right decision to save the lives of my men and to enable our seriously wounded to receive medical care. But I felt bad: I was no longer the master of my own life. It was a bitter experience.”

Lt Col Krotevych, who was born and brought up in Crimea and who was also held as a POW, agreed. “My homeland was occupied in 2014 so I volunteered to fight to get it back. There is no expiry date or time limit on my duty to my country. As long as my country needs me, I will be there.”

Even after a decade of fighting, both men shrug off the dangers they face almost daily on the frontline. In the words of Lt Col Krotevych,

Col Prokopenko, who is 6 feet 5 inches tall, broad shouldered and with fair hair, is both charming and articulate. His deputy, who is shorter with a mop of dark hair and a bushy beard, is equally friendly but with an air of steely determination about him. Both men speak good English and have a warm, if sometimes dark, sense of humour

It is mainly the Russians who have been advancing gradually on the front line in the first eight months of 2024 because Ukraine’s Armed Forces have faced a desperate shortage of weapons and ammunition. However, I can reveal that in recent weeks the Azov Brigade, working with the 1st Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard, has been one of the few Ukrainian units to capture enemy ground, although senior military sources admit that the advance has been slow and difficult.

It is understood that the Azov Brigade is currently responsible for defending a key area of the frontline, more than six miles long close to the city of Lyman and which includes the Serebryansky forest. It is a pine forest on sandy soil which makes trench building difficult for both sides. Furthermore, the high trees interfere with the frequency of the drones.

As I have witnessed, the signs of a brutal and on-going war are everywhere: thousands of pine trees have been scorched black by artillery and other fire, while there are burnt-out military and civilian vehicles besides the roads and in the forest. Lyman itself is known as “the city without windows” as a result of being at the heart of the fighting for more than two years and barely a glass window in most buildings remains intact.

However, over the past ten months, successful assaults using drones, artillery fire and sniper fire suggest that the Azov Brigade, believed to be nearly 5,000 strong, has become the world’s most deadly fighting force in these forest conditions. Faced with a weapon and ammunition shortage, they adapted including organising the mass production of FPV (First Person View) and “kamikaze” drones in their homeland, rather than relying on imported or gifted arms from abroad.

In June, there was more good news for the Azov Brigade. After nearly a decade, the US finally lifted its ban on providing arms to the unit over claims it was a far-right, even Nazi, force. Azov blames Russian lies for the ban and Col Prokopenko has welcomed the decision. He thanked the US adding: “I would like to congratulate all the soldiers of the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov and the entire civilised world on the victory over Russian propaganda.”

With both the Ukrainian and Russian armies weary of war and suffering heavy casualties, there have been frequent suggestions of the need for a peace deal, even if it means that Ukraine gives up nearly 20 per cent of its land that is currently illegally seized by its invaders – the “Occupied Territories” or what Ukrainians understandably prefer to call the “Temporary Occupied Territories”.

However, Col Prokopenko said: “We must not waste time talking of peace on these terms. All it will do is give our enemy time to prepare for the next offensive in one or two years’ time. The Russians will not be satisfied until they capture all of Ukraine.”

Lt Col Krotevych was more blunt:

He added, “Right now, it is a war of exhaustion. Russia is exhausted too but they try to hide it. I firmly believe that if we stay strong, Russia will break down first.”

Furthermore, no Azov officers who surrendered in May 2022 trust the Russians to keep their word on any peace deal. Azov sources say that before the surrender the Russians agreed to 16 separate written conditions and broke every one of them.

These included that the Azov POWs would be well treated and returned to their homeland within four months. In fact, there is widespread evidence that many of the Azov soldiers who surrendered have been repeatedly tortured and most of them remain as POWs more than two years on. Six Azov POWs are reported to have died after beatings from their captors.

Col Prokopenko says of the Azov POWS, “Their names are not forgotten. Today, every battle, every shot and every step we take is aimed at one thing — bringing the captured Azov men home. And until this happens, we will not stop fighting. We will bring everyone back.”

Lt Col Krotevych gave me details of the mistreatment of him and others senior officers after their surrender and before being flown to Moscow. He said that nine officers spent four days at Olenivka prison in Russian-held Ukrainian territory before they were flown to Moscow via another city, believed to be Rostov. Before leaving the flight to Moscow, he says all the officers were badly beaten by their captors.

“They jumped on my head but I didn’t really feel pain because duct-tape had been put across my eyes and beneath my chin. It meant I was deprived of oxygen and so I felt less,” Lt Col Krotevych said with a shrug and laugh. “The most painful things were their dumb commands and remarks, telling us they were going to throw us off the plane with no parachutes. I thought to myself: ‘Don’t just promise it, f***ing do it’.

“My four months in solitary confinement were very hard. I would rather have taken regular beatings than not knowing what was happening to my brothers – my fellow soldiers,” he said. He added that the officers were only interrogated once early in their captivity. Conditions in their tiny cells were brutally harsh: they were under 24/7 surveillance including having a video camera fixed on their toilet. “I like to challenge myself and I was determined they would not break me,” he said dismissively.

Despite their treatment at the hands of their Russian captors, the two officers are insistent that neither they nor any of their men have ever mistreated any of the 50 Russians soldiers that Azov has captured in the past ten months. “There is no honour in being cruel to someone who cannot respond,” said Lt Col Krotevych.

So far this has not happened because many existing NATO members fear this would lead to a huge escalation of the conflict, even a nuclear war.

They have other causes that they are actively pursuing notably bringing to justice those who allegedly perpetrated a massacre of Azov and others POWs at the Olenivka prison camp. Russia stands accused of deliberately blowing up an area of the prison camp in late July 2022, thereby killing 53 prisoners and injuring 110 more. Russia claims the prison was hit by a missile fired from Ukraine. Azov, however, insists this was a war crime and its officers criticise the international community for not doing more to identify the perpetrators so they can eventually be brought to justice.

The famous siege of Mariupol in 2022 now seems like a distant memory after so much fighting since then: Lt Col Krotevych said, “I expected to die in the Azovstal steel plant but when you see your wounded soldiers rotting, with worms in their bodies, you have to do the right thing and save them.

“People get used to anything and adapt to it. In the steelworks, mortars exploded just ten or 15 metres away and we ignored them. We just got on with what we had to do.”

Earlier this year I met Col Prokopenko’s wife, Kateryna, when she visited London as part of a six-strong delegation from the Association of Azovstal Defenders’ Families. The main purpose of their visit was to raise the profile of the Azov POWs still being held in Russia. However, Kateryna and her friend, Yuliia Fedosiuk, already had a high-profile because, during the Siege of Mariupol, they toured the world, including meeting the Pope and addressing US Congress, to highlight the plight of the Azov defenders.

Now, as the author of seven books on courage and as a collector of gallantry medals, I feel privileged to have met her husband and his second-in-command, two of the most courageous men on the planet.

Although both officers insist they will continue to fight the Russians for as long as the war lasts, both also long for a successful peace deal that guarantees Ukraine’s future.

When the war ends, Col Prokopenko says his first priority will be to “pay our respects to our fallen brothers” – to honour Azov soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for their nation’s freedom.

His other wishes are to rekindle his passion for skiing – as an expert downhill skier he has a record speed of more than 90 kilometres an hour – and to enjoy a long and happy marriage. He says Lord Ashcroft meets the undaunted commanders of the Azov Brigade in war-torn Ukraine. of Kateryna: “I am very proud and grateful for all she has done for me and my men.”

This interview was published in the Sunday Express on August 18, 2024 and is being reprinted with the author’s permission. See the original here.