“Alumni” of the torture chambers – after Russian captivity, men are left to heal themselves

Oleksii Sivak from Kherson is one of the Ukrainians who managed to escape Russian captivity. He was released shortly before Ukrainian forces liberated the city. Like thousands of others trapped in Russian torture chambers, Oleksii endured savage beatings, torture, and sexual violence. As he searched for a path to healing, Oleksii discovered a harsh reality: most rehabilitation programs—whether run by the state or international organizations—were designed with only women and children in mind, leaving men like him to navigate their recovery alone.

The absence of systemic support for civilian men affected by Russia’s aggression pushed Oleksii to fight for it—not just for himself, but for those he knew shared his pain. He blazed a trail to assistance for over 400 men who had survived captivity. Determined to extend this lifeline to as many as possible, Oleksii founded a public organization, giving it a name laced with both irony and resilience: The Network of Ukrainian Men Who Survived Captivity and Torture – The Alumni.

Danyil Bulgakov, a 27-year-old who spent nearly three years in Russian captivity, turned to The Network for help. Danyil grew up in Donetsk and was just 16 when militants from the Russian-backed “DPR” seized the city. After finishing his studies, he moved to Kharkiv, where he worked as an IT teacher and lived happily with his girlfriend. But within a few years, life pulled him back to Donetsk to care for his ailing grandmother.

In 2020, Russian militants came for him, accusing him of espionage. In captivity, Danyil endured torture, relentless beatings, and starvation. It was there, behind prison walls, that he learned of the full-scale war and the death of his loved ones. It wasn’t until January 2024 that he finally made it back to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

The stories of Oleksii and Danyil are worlds apart. When Russian forces occupied Donetsk, Oleksii was a seasoned sailor with ten years at sea, while Danyil was still a teenager, studying programming at a technical college and not yet of age. By the time Kherson fell, Oleksii was preparing for his next voyage, while 25-year-old Danyil had already spent nearly two years in captivity. Oleksii defied the occupiers openly, driving them to frustration by hanging Ukrainian symbols in the streets. Danyil, in contrast, lived a quiet life in Donetsk. His only rebellion was the care he gave his ailing grandmother.

What binds these two different stories is the men’s unwavering pro-Ukrainian stance, the torture they endured at the hands of the Russians because of it, and the trials they faced in the aftermath of captivity.

Childhood in Donetsk

After his release from captivity, Danyil Bulgakov joined The Alumni. Now, he spends his days hunched over a computer, working with the organization’s documents, fueled by a steady stream of energy drinks. Every few days, he submits applications to enlist in various units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Clad in an olive-green T-shirt emblazoned with the word Army, Danyil calls himself a militarist, insisting he’s been one since his youth. Even as a child, he was certain that war between Ukraine and Russia was inevitable.

One day there’d be American ships in Crimea, ‘coming to beat you Russians.

Growing up in Donetsk, Danyil attended a school where, despite legal requirements, the Ukrainian language wasn’t taught, and the only television channels available were Russian. Even now, he occasionally mixes language nuances, pronouncing certain words with Russian-influenced sounds. Yet, despite these influences—and his father’s views, a man of Russian descent—Danyil always considered himself Ukrainian.

“Once, he hit me with a chair because I said that one day there’d be American ships in Crimea, ‘coming to beat you Russians,” Danyil laughs, quickly adding that his father never truly meant him harm. After arguments like that, they always made up just as quickly.

Danyil recalls that he never liked Russia, even as a child—neither the country itself nor Putin, who was popular in Ukraine at the time. He remembers trips to his father’s hometown of Bratsk, deep in Siberia. What stuck with him were the wooden train cars, sunken into the ground, where people had lived for over 40 years without electricity or plumbing. Danyil also remembers the Russians he encountered in Donetsk. He didn’t like them either, especially because of the condescension with which they treated Ukrainians.

Danyil was just 16 when militants from the so-called “DPR” seized control of Donetsk. The moment he turned eighteen, he and his girlfriend fled to Sloviansk. There, he earned his Ukrainian diploma. Then, Kharkiv became their new home, a city where Danyil built a life from scratch. By day, he taught IT in a local school; by night, he fixed electronics in a small repair shop. It wasn’t much, but it was honest work—and for the first time in years, it felt like freedom.

“You know those ads with Brad Pitt’s photo? Well, I was the one who showed up instead of him,”,Danyil jokes with a grin.

“They threw me to the ground and pulled a bag over my head.”

A few years passed, and Danyil’s grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. He returned to occupied Donetsk to care for her. In May 2020, a year later, she passed away. After finalizing the paperwork to inherit her apartment, Danyil planned to return to Kharkiv.

They threw me to the ground and pulled a bag over my head.

On August 19, the intercom buzzed. A voice on the other end identified itself as the police, claiming to be conducting a routine check. Danyil thought nothing of it—just another formality. But it wasn’t. They had come for him.

“The moment I opened the door, men in masks with assault rifles stormed in. They threw me to the ground and pulled a bag over my head,” Danyil recalls.

He was taken to the so-called Ministry of State Security of the DPR, a fictitious institution created by the militants. During the interrogation, the special operatives demanded that Danyil sign a confession admitting to espionage—a charge that carried a 15-year prison sentence. At first, he refused, firmly denying any ties to Ukrainian intelligence. But his defiance wasn’t what the enforcers wanted. To break his resistance, they began to beat him.

“They beat me until evening, forcing me: ‘Sign it, sign it.’ I didn’t sign anything that first day. Though now, I think maybe I should’ve,” Danyil recalls.

At night, they cuffed him to a radiator. By morning, they returned with a “tapik”—a field telephone device used to administer electric shocks.

When they attached the wires to my genitals, I was ready to sign anything.

In the end, Danyil signed the “confession.” But the torment didn’t stop. The enforcers kept shocking him, making sure he understood that compliance offered no mercy. By morning, the torture resumed. They sat him on a chair, pulled a plastic bag over his head, and tied his hands behind his back. The interrogation was all meaningless questions, forced confessions already written on paper, a camera recording every moment. And then there were the spectators watching as the torture played out as if it were a rehearsed spectacle.

“At the end, as a sort of farewell ritual, they decided to put on a show by sawing off two of my teeth,” Danyil recounts.

To keep his jaws from clenching, they shoved a metal spacer into his mouth. One of the torturers began sawing at his teeth with a metal file. By the time they were done, only jagged stumps remained. Six months later, his gums began to fester with infection.

“I was battered, electrocuted, my mouth was bleeding. I couldn’t make sense of anything—everything was spinning. They sat me down on a chair, and I just blacked out immediately,” – Danyil recalls, describing his last memory before imprisonment.

The Isolation Torture Chamber

Danyil woke up in Isolation—a prison the “DPR” militants had set up in 2014 inside what was once a contemporary art center on the grounds of a former factory. The filthy cell was no larger than 20 square meters. With no ventilation and a shared toilet, 15 people were crammed into the space. The youngest was 16, the oldest — 98. There weren’t enough beds—metal planks welded to the walls—so prisoners had to sleep two or three to a bed.

You’ve got a second and a half to stand up, pull a bag over your head, and turn your face to the wall.

During the day, lying down, sleeping, or doing any physical exercises was strictly forbidden. The captives were allowed to sit, but only within the range of the surveillance camera. Even then, not everyone could sit at once—there simply wasn’t enough room. Whenever anyone entered the cell, everyone had to stand.

“If you hear footsteps approaching the door or the locks clicking open, you’ve got a second and a half to stand up, pull a bag over your head, and turn your face to the wall. If anyone doesn’t move fast enough, everyone will be beaten half to death,” Danyil says.

Prisoners were allowed nothing but the clothes on their backs. Living on a diet of watery wheat porridge and two pieces of bread a day, each of them lost over 10 kilograms. Their loose, sagging clothes were tied up with bits of wire—scraps some had managed to find while being forced to build dugouts and trenches for the occupiers. Even for this small act of defiance, they were brutally punished.

“Not today, the swap is tomorrow.”

One day, the Russians ordered all those accused of espionage to shave their heads and faces, leaving only thin toothbrush mustaches—just like Hitler’s. Danyil slipped one of the three blades from his razor and hid it in his waistband. He carried it with him for three years, contemplating suicide every single day.

“Luckily, I could never bring myself to do it. I thought about it every single day, when I woke up in the morning and when I went to bed at night. But every day, I told myself and everyone around me: not today, because the exchange is tomorrow. I wore that thought out for myself and for everyone I was locked up with,” Danyil says.

Danyil is certain he wasn’t the only one haunted by such thoughts, though no one ever spoke of them out loud. He never told anyone about the blade hidden in his waistband, fearing it might push someone else toward the irreversible.

“Or worse—they’d snitch on you to the guards, and then you’d be dragged into another circle of hell.” Danyil recalls.

They’d throw you into a solitary cell where you can’t sit, stand, or lie down—and after that, you wouldn’t be able to walk at all.

In March 2021, seven months into his imprisonment, Danyil was informed he would be transferred from Isolation. The news sparked a flicker of hope—prisoners were often moved before an exchange. He, along with several others, was taken to Colony No. 97 in Makiivka, where militants had set up a makeshift pre-trial detention center for political prisoners.

“They didn’t beat us like they did in Isolation, but a different kind of torture began—they tortured us with time. We were forgotten: no investigators came, no actions were taken. We realized we were probably stuck there until the very end,” Danyil says.

Kherson, February 2022

Almost every free moment, Oleksii Sivak from Kherson is on the phone, handling matters for The Alumni, all while lighting another cigarette. On his left palm, he has a tattoo that reads: “I don’t smoke with my left hand,” inked during one of his voyages. Oleksii spent 17 years at sea, working in ship repair and construction. He saw nearly every corner of the world, but his heart always belonged to his hometown—Kherson.

There were times when Oleksii and his crew had to fend off pirate raids—even finding themselves taken hostage. But none of that, he says, compared to the terror of the Russian occupation of his hometown. For Oleksii, the torture began long before captivity—at the end of February, six months before he was officially taken prisoner.

For over 20 years, Oleksii had been a devoted husband. He had little interest in politics and, despite the warnings and talk among his fellow sailors, never believed that Russia would launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On February 25, 2022, he was supposed to set out on a new voyage.

“Two or three more voyages and I would’ve finished building the house,” Oleksii says.

People were simply driving, and Russian soldiers gunned them down from the tree lines. There were so many like that.

Oleksii’s family lived in the northwest of Kherson, just a few kilometers from the now-infamous Chornobaivka. The explosions at the airfield were the first grim signal of the Russian assault. The couple had no action plan, only a small emergency bag packed just in case. Escape wasn’t an option. They couldn’t leave behind or evacuate his wife’s mother, who was partially paralyzed. There were no “green corridors” to guarantee safe passage. While some Kherson residents managed to flee through Snihurivka in the Mykolaiv region, others paid for their attempts to escape with their lives.

“I saw civilian cars—some in the fields, others just along the ring road—clearly trying to break through. People were simply driving, and Russian soldiers gunned them down from the tree lines. There were so many like that,” Oleksii recalls.

“To drive the Russians mad with blue and yellow pattern”

When Russian forces settled into Kherson, tearing down Ukrainian flags and asserting their control, Oleksii was outraged. The number of foes in the city grew, and resisting them physically seemed impossible. So, he turned to psychological warfare. On May 9, as the occupiers celebrated their Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War, Oleksii hung a banner at the city’s entrance that read “No to Ruscism.” It was his first act of psychological sabotage.

Later, together with other Kherson residents, Oleksii began hanging blue-and-yellow flags and effigies of occupiers around the city, spreading leaflets with portraits of Ukrainian nationalists. Raising the Ukrainian flag was a message to the Russians that they were on foreign soil and would never be masters here. Beyond that, Oleksii wanted to get under their skin, to make sure these images would haunt the occupiers and be etched into their memories forever.

Our idea was to drive the Russians mad with blue and yellow pattern.

In occupied Kherson, food became scarce, and prices soared to unimaginable heights. The hardest hit were the elderly, for whom even the most basic groceries turned into an unattainable luxury. Refusing to stand by, Oleksii and his friends set up a makeshift field kitchen. Two or three times a week, they cooked steaming pots of soup and hearty porridge, offering a small comfort amidst the chaos. Each time, over 200 people gathered.

“We used to joke that we had three meals a week,” Oleksii recalls with a smile.

The elderly people Oleksii had been feeding soon began helping him with his underground activities. At first, however, they wanted to take a more radical approach.

“At first, the elderly ladies were asking me for knives and grenades,”,Oleksii laughs, recalling the moment. “Instead, I gave them blue-and-yellow ribbons to hang around the city.”

Soon, the walls of Kherson’s buildings were adorned with handwritten verses by prominent poet and writer Lina Kostenko, carefully penned by a local pensioner.

The Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Unit

Meanwhile, in Makiivka, Danyil kept catching Russia’s claimed victories on the front lines. Televisions were installed in the cells, broadcasting nothing but Russian state channels.

“All day long, we watched missiles hitting Ukraine,” Danyil recalls. “The guards quickly latched onto it, feeding us their disinformation—‘We’ve already entered Kyiv,’ they’d say, ‘we’re closing in on Lviv.’” But Danyil never believed in their claimed victories.

It hurt so much. It was hard to breathe, hard to even speak.

Yet, watching the relentless airstrikes on Ukraine unfold live each day, Danyil couldn’t shake the fear for his girlfriend, who was still in Kharkiv. A few months later, a letter from a friend delivered the news he had dreaded most—Nastya had been killed when a Russian missile struck her home.

“It hurt so much. It felt like something was cutting into my chest—it was hard to breathe, hard to even speak,” Danyil says quietly. “But life, good or not, inevitably goes on.”

As the Russians ramped up their mobilization of prisoners, they began offering captives a grim bargain: enlist in their army in exchange for amnesty, Russian citizenship, and a payout of 1.5 million rubles. The so-called “investigators” pushed hard, trying to lure them into a newly minted unit named after Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. Even mercenaries from the notorious Wagner Group joined the recruitment drive, peddling promises and threats in equal measure. But not a single Ukrainian in the colony took the bait.

“Before the full-scale war, we used to think, if only someone would come and say, ‘Storm that trench, and you’ll be free through blood.’ But when you’re actually faced with that choice, it looks completely different,” Danyil says.

Accepting his death sentence

On the eve of Ukraine’s Independence Day, another blue-and-yellow flag appeared in Kherson—this time, hoisted by Oleksii and his neighbor. The very next day, Russian forces stormed into the neighbor’s home. The messages on his phone led them straight to Oleksii. A day later, the occupiers came for him too.

The interrogation dragged on for hours. During the search of his home, the Russians uncovered Ukrainian flags, balloons filled with paint and a Molotov cocktail, an old relic crafted by Oleksii’s grandmother. A soldering iron and some wire, ordinary household items, were twisted into evidence of a supposed bomb-making operation. To the occupiers, everything was a weapon.

The militants then drove Oleksii to a nearby canal, claiming he had tossed his phone into the water after learning of his neighbor’s arrest. When it became clear they wouldn’t recover the device, the occupiers staged his execution. In that moment, Oleksii came to terms with his death. All that mattered was not betraying the dozens of Kherson residents who had helped him.

“They say your whole life flashes before your eyes before you die. That’s not true. When they yanked the bag off my head, all I saw was the barrel of a gun. Just darkness, and this thought: the switch is about to flip—and thank God. It’s over,” Oleksii recalls.

Oleksii was taken to a local detention center. In a cell meant for three, he found himself crammed alongside ten others—people the occupiers, in their usual twisted fashion of distorting reality, had accused of “separatism.”

“The only good thing was that they’d renovated the place before the occupation and covered the floor with plywood. At least we weren’t sleeping on bare concrete,” Oleksii says.

The Anarchist

Oleksii lost count of how many interrogations and beatings he endured in captivity. Whenever the Russians tried to extract information, he played the fool, reciting his life story on a loop instead of giving them answers. During one interrogation, he tried to convince his captors that he was a pacifist—but the word “anarchist” slipped out instead. The nickname stuck. Though it might sound heroic in hindsight, Oleksii admits the truth was far from it. He was terrified.

“It was all snot and tears, nothing like how it sounds now. I wasn’t brave—I just didn’t care anymore,” Oleksii recalls.

I was heading there to die.

When the doors opened, prisoners were forced to turn their faces to the wall and, on command, shout “Glory to Russia.” The slightest violation could trigger a brutal beating for the entire cell—on top of the regular torture and abuse during interrogations.

The torture inflicted by the Russians and their collaborators, Oleksii recalls, was varied and constantly “refined.” The captors drew inspiration from foreign thrillers, mimicking the methods of abuse they’d seen on screen.

“Seen those Hollywood action movies? Well, so did they,” Oleksii says bitterly.

Oleksii recalls the stories of other men who had survived captivity. Across different regions and timeframes, the methods of Russian enforcers were disturbingly uniform. Starvation, relentless beatings, electrocution, simulated drownings, and sexual violence—each tactic spoke to a systematic, almost institutionalized, approach to torture. It was as if there was a “school” of brutality, refining its methods over time. Among the most harrowing was the so-called “polygraph”—a procedure where prisoners were subjected to electric shocks to their genitals.

“When they torture you like that, you curl up, pulling your knees to your chest to protect your stomach. But that leaves your groin exposed from behind, and that’s where they start beating you—with boots and sticks. I was lucky in a way—I always managed to fall on my back,” Oleksii recounts.

Physical abuse was accompanied by relentless psychological torture. The Russians forced prisoners to listen as others were being tortured. To make sure the screams echoed through the cells, they would open the windows of the torture chambers on the lower floors. But when it was time for an interrogation, the windows were shut tight—trapping the horror inside.

Some prisoners weren’t beaten, but the occupiers kept them in a constant state of fear. Oleksii recalls one man who, during interrogations, was never touched—instead, the Russians would simply talk to him and then hand him a bar of chocolate afterward.

“He’d come back to the cell pale, clutching that chocolate,” Oleksii remembers. “They beat us, sure, but at least that was a finished fact. He was stuck waiting for it to happen every time.”

In September 2022, Kremlin announced a so-called “referendum” on Kherson region’s annexation into the Russian Federation. Prisoners weren’t just forced to participate in this sham vote—they were even told exactly which box to mark on the ballot.

“What surprised me was that there were only two options,” Oleksii says. “I was walking in thinking I’d tick the box for ‘abstain.’ I even asked the guard why there were only two choices.”

Oleksii’s simple question about the ballot didn’t go unanswered. It was reported to the prison warden, and the punishment was swift and merciless. For hours, the warden tortured him with an electric shocker, sending waves of agony through his body until the first device’s battery gave out. Then, without pause, he pulled out a second one and continued until that battery, too, was drained.

“My entire spine was burned,” Oleksii recalls, his voice steady but distant.

By mid-October, as Russian forces prepared to retreat from Kherson, the prison descended into chaos. Guards began burning documents, dismantling equipment, and rounding up prisoners. But the greatest terror wasn’t the beatings or interrogations—it was seeing your name on the “transfer list.” Those marked for transfer were shipped off to more remote prisons deep within occupied territories or across the border into Russia. Few ever returned.

That was the moment I finally felt the air, felt the sun again.

In the end, Oleksii was lucky. There wasn’t enough space for him in the transport truck. Like many survivors, he considers his freedom a stroke of chance, a fragile thread of fortune in a web of cruelty.

When the guards finally handed back his passport and pressed 100 hryvnias into his hand, Oleksii stepped outside into a world that felt foreign and familiar all at once.

“The city was alive,” he says. “Everything looked greener, brighter. That was the moment I finally felt the air, felt the sun again.”

“I got me some ice cream”

Nearly a year had passed since Russian forces retreated from Kherson. By that time, Danyll had been held in the Makiivka colony for over two years, and any hope of release had long since faded. Desperate and out of options, he resorted to a final act of defiance—hunger strike.

“I thought, I’ve got nothing left to lose—I was just done with everything,” Danyil recalls.

Together with another prisoner, a Jordanian named Berem, Danyil went on a hunger strike that lasted two weeks. Miraculously, it worked. Berem was released first, and the next day, the charges against Danyil were “dropped.” As Danyil explains, at the time of his arrest, the militants had been operating under the fabricated laws of the so-called “DPR.” These “laws,” under which he had been accused of espionage, lost their power after the sham referendum that claimed to annex the region into the Russian Federation. Once Russian law was imposed in Donetsk, the occupiers no longer recognized Danyil as a spy.

The “charges” were dropped, and Danyil was released—though he was banned from leaving the occupied part of the Donetsk region for six months. Finally free, Danyil had nothing. His apartment had been illegally seized by the occupiers, and he didn’t even have a phone to contact anyone he knew. All he possessed were 50 Russian rubles—barely enough for a single bus fare. But instead of saving it for a ride, he spent it on the one thing he had dreamed of during his three years in captivity: food.

“I got me some ice cream and started walking all the way to Makiivka,” Danyil says with a faint smile.

While stuck in Donetsk under a “travel ban,” Danyil couldn’t believe he’d ever be allowed to leave the occupied territory. He lived in constant fear that they would come for him again with new “charges.” Determined to escape, he attempted to leave despite the restrictions. But when he tried to cross the Russian border, he was turned away.

When the relatively safe escape route was blocked, only the most dangerous option remained—the shortest path, straight across the front line. Danyil was prepared to make his way through the fields toward Avdiivka. But in August 2023, just as he was ready to move, Russian forces launched another offensive on the city. Intense fighting made his plan impossible.

They told me to go back to Donetsk and wait for de-occupation.

Danyil’s “criminal case” was finally closed at the end of 2023. When he was at last permitted to leave, he borrowed $2,000 and set out on his journey. The path to free Ukrainian territory took him through Russia, Belarus, and Poland. But when he reached the Belarus-Poland border, he was told his passport was invalid. The Belarusian authorities advised him to contact the Ukrainian embassy in Minsk.

“No one even thought Ukraine still had an embassy in Belarus—but it does!” Danyil says, still surprised. “But when I got there, they told me to go back to Donetsk and wait for de-occupation.”

Some visitors at the embassy told Danyil about the temporarily closed Mokrany-Domanove checkpoint in Volyn, now serving as a humanitarian corridor for Ukrainians returning from occupied territories. There, Danyil underwent several hours of screening before finally reaching the neutral zone. Only 1.5 kilometers stood between him and the Ukrainian border checkpoint—a distance he would have to cross on foot.

Read more: Moving feels scarier than guided bombs: why residents of a frontline community choose to stay under fire?

“I called that road the Via Dolorosa—the path Jesus walked to his crucifixion,” Danyil recalls. “There I was, trudging through a snow-covered forest—it was January, and the snow was knee-deep. No one drove there, no one walked there—just me, alone in that dense pine woods.”

Finally, through the trees, he spotted the jagged shapes of anti-tank hedgehogs. Danyil shouted out to the border guards, explaining that he had just returned from captivity. It felt like the finish line was within reach.

«“Just don’t try climbing over the border now—if you do, that’s a criminal offense,” the soldiers warned him.

The next morning, Danyil set out once more on his Via Dolorosa, retracing the same snow-laden path through the silent forest toward the Ukrainian checkpoint. This time, after a thorough screening, the border guards finally allowed him to cross into Ukraine.

“Only one word flashed through my mind: ‘Finally,’” Danyil breathes.

“You realize that you are alone here”

The border guards took Danyil to Kovel, where he underwent security screening by the Ukraine’s security service and a polygraph test. By the next day, he was free to go wherever he wished. But returning to Kharkiv wasn’t an option—he couldn’t bear the thought of facing the shadows of a life he once had: a job, parties, friends, and the woman he loved.

All of that is gone now, and I don’t want to go back to a place where there’s nothing but ruins.

Danyil moved to Irpin, where he rented an apartment. As an internally displaced person, he was eligible for social housing, but the conditions offered felt too much like a prison to him.

“After captivity, where you live in a barrack the size of one and a half rooms with 20 people, they offer you the same room—only now with 25 people. Seriously?” Danyil scoffs.

Danyil recalls that the euphoria he felt after returning to Ukrainian-controlled territory faded within a month. His hope that someone would be waiting for him here shattered instantly when, at a government office, he heard: “You should have stayed there; you’ve only added to the trouble.”

“You sit in captivity believing the state will welcome you. In reality, for the state, we don’t exist. You realize that you’re nothing to anyone,” Danyil states.

With an invalid passport, he struggled to find work and accumulated a debt of 250,000 hryvnias [aprox. $5,900]. Eventually, he was able to receive 100,000 hryvnias [over $2,200] in compensation from the government for his time in captivity.

Danyil found help with his other problems through intergovernmental and charitable organizations. He reached out to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which provided him with a laptop, civilian clothing, and covered two months of his rent. In addition, the organization arranged for him to undergo a primary medical check-up, during which he received essential medications—particularly for his asthma, which had worsened during his captivity.

Eventually, Danyil found another charitable organization, Blue Bird, which helped him restore his teeth—damaged by poor nutrition, a lack of vitamins, and sunlight. However, they were unable to cover the cost of dental implants for the teeth that had been pulled out by the occupiers or lost due to his deteriorating health.

After captivity, Danyil’s eyesight worsened, and he began wearing glasses. Upon his release, he weighed a critical 60 kilograms, but once he had access to food again, he quickly gained weight.

“You see food, and every taste just hits you like a fountain. That’s how I got hooked on energy drinks,” Danyil admits.

Once his treatment was complete and he started feeling stronger, he immediately began seeking opportunities to join the army. Danyil attempted to enlist more than 60 times—submitting applications to various units. While many were willing to accept him, Ukraine’s security service repeatedly rejected the commanders’ requests. In September 2024, Danyil took the fight to court, seeking the right to serve in the Ukrainian forces, but the court also turned him down.

The Alumni Network

Daniil met Oleksii Sivak, who had already established The Network of Ukrainian Men Who Survived Captivity and Torture. Not only did Danyil benefit from the support of the organization, but he also became actively involved, taking on the role of co-coordinator. Now, he is determined to continue Oleksii’s work and help other men returning from Russian captivity.

For Oleksii, The Network became the purpose of his life. He recalls his own release from captivity—he had no money, and shortly after Kherson’s liberation, he started receiving calls from the bank demanding repayment of a loan. Oleksii had lost his health during captivity and had no means to pay for medical treatment.

Wherever I turned, they just took my details, gave me a pack of pasta, some oil, and wished me luck.

Through the prosecutor’s office, Oleksii was offered rehabilitation services from the International Organization for Migration. At the time, treatment was typically reserved for victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, usually women and children. Oleksii agreed to the offer, but when he arrived, he found that the facility didn’t have a urologist who could assist men who had suffered from sexual violence.

“Rehabilitation is a strong word. But they did a full medical check-up, administered IV drips, and gave me antidepressants,” Oleksii says.

Together with his wife, Oleksii sought various forms of assistance he needed. Meeting with a small group of acquaintances at coffee shops, he shared his experiences and contacts that had helped him. Over time, other men who had returned from captivity began reaching out for support. For more than a year, Oleksii assisted former prisoners with their paperwork, sent them for rehabilitation, and participated in consultations on interim reparations. At every step, he faced resistance from the system. It was this struggle that motivated him to continue his work.

“I’m building this organization despite everything. If we were receiving proper support, I wouldn’t be doing this—I’d be focusing on my own rehabilitation and living my life. But instead, I have to fight for help for these guys. How many have come back without documents, without family—without anything? And no one wants to help them,” Oleksii says.

Today, The Alumni Network counts over 400 members—men who have survived captivity and sought help. The organization has begun collaborating with various foundations and charitable organizations. Its representatives actively participate in working groups that draft laws related to conflict-related sexual violence, reparations, and other critical issues. They also provide consultations to government officials on how to communicate effectively with individuals who have endured similar trauma.

In December 2024, The Alumni Network sent a letter to the United Nations. Speaking on behalf of those whose lives have been shattered by Russian crimes, they demand that Russia be included in the UN’s annual report on sexual violence in conflict zones. While the men remain skeptical, they see this step as essential, at least to remind the international community once again of the atrocities committed by Russian forces.

If the UN does not label Russia as a war criminal, it will mean that the organization becomes complicit in its crimes.

This appeal is a testament to the fact that, in defending their rights, The Alumni have done everything they can. They rehabilitated themselves and began helping others. They not only utilized the support of the state and various foundations but also created their own organization to provide systematic and extensive assistance to the victims. Having endured captivity and torture, these men continue to fight for those still in captivity and advocate for the interests of the freed among Ukrainian lawmakers and international organizations.

Author: Viktoria Kalimbet
Photo: Danylo Dubchak