‘We Are Waiting’: Vira Mandzina and the Families Fighting for Ukraine’s Prisoners of War

By Matthew Parish

Sunday 4 October 2026

In Kharkiv, a city where air-raid alarms, explosions and Russian attacks have become features of everyday existence, another war is being fought quietly and persistently. It is the struggle by the families and loved ones of Ukrainian prisoners of war and missing servicemen and women to ensure that their names are not forgotten.

Vira Mandzina is one of the people engaged in that struggle. She began attending the Free Azov demonstrations in Kharkiv in January 2024, after returning to the city for work. She had previously participated in demonstrations in Kyiv associated with the Ukrainian Marine Corps, but was surprised to discover that similar gatherings were taking place in Kharkiv despite the city’s proximity to the front and the constant danger of Russian attacks.

Over time, Mandzina became part of a team calling itself “Nezlamni Kharkiviany” — “Unbreakable Kharkiv Residents”. The group has organised motor rallies in support of prisoners of war and missing persons, staged a performance marking the International Day of the Disappeared and developed an initiative called “A Package for a Defender”. It has no rigid hierarchy. Members contribute where they can.

The demonstrations themselves have also evolved. What began under the Free Azov banner is now known as “Don’t Be Silent! Captivity Kills”. Although the movement retains its origins in campaigning for prisoners from the Mariupol garrison, it now speaks more broadly for Ukrainian prisoners of war and missing defenders from many different brigades and units.

For Mandzina, this is intensely personal. Her partner, Vladyslav — Vlad — is a serviceman of Ukraine’s 36th Separate Marine Brigade. He defended Mariupol in the opening months of Russia’s full-scale invasion and was captured on 12 April 2022. More than four years later, she is still waiting for him to come home.

The Lviv Herald spoke to Vira Mandzina about Vlad, Mariupol, Russian captivity, the families who continue to wait and why, even under bombardment in Kharkiv, they refuse to be silent.

Matthew Parish: Vira, how did you become involved in these demonstrations in Kharkiv, and what is your role today?

Vira Mandzina: I began taking part in the Free Azov demonstrations in Kharkiv at the beginning of January 2024. I discovered through social media that they were taking place after I returned to Kharkiv and started working here again. Before that, I had participated in demonstrations for the Marine Brigade in Kyiv, so I was genuinely surprised to discover that demonstrations supporting prisoners were also taking place in Kharkiv.

Our city lives under constant danger, bombardment and proximity to the front line, yet despite all this people continue to come out.

At first, I was simply a regular participant. Over time we came together as the Nezlamni Kharkiviany team. I can genuinely say that it is an incredible group of people. Despite the security situation, constant attacks, air-raid alerts, work, personal circumstances and their own exhaustion, they continue doing things that sometimes seem impossible.

Each of us has our own life, difficulties and story. Yet when we need to unite around a common purpose, this team somehow finds both the strength and the means.

We have created a number of our own initiatives. We organise motor rallies supporting prisoners of war and missing persons. We held a performance for the International Day of the Disappeared and organised the “Package for a Defender” initiative.

We don’t have a strict division of positions or responsibilities. Everyone contributes wherever they can be most useful. Perhaps that is precisely our strength. We aren’t merely a group of people who attend demonstrations. We are a team constantly searching for new ways to speak about our prisoners and missing people and to prevent society from forgetting them.

Parish: You were careful to explain when we first spoke that these demonstrations are not solely about Azov. What does the movement represent today?

Mandzina: Today the demonstration has evolved and is called “Don’t Be Silent! Captivity Kills”. It remains a demonstration reminding people about the prisoners of war from the Mariupol garrison, but today we also speak about all Ukraine’s captured and missing defenders, men and women alike.

Relatives of servicemen and women from different brigades and units come together at these demonstrations. There is no division between “ours” and “theirs”. It doesn’t matter where your loved one serves. We have one objective: bringing our defenders home.

Our strength lies in unity.

Parish: Your own connection with this story is through Vladyslav, a marine and defender of Mariupol. Tell me about him and about the last time you heard his voice.

Mandzina: Vladyslav is my partner. Our relationship began in October 2017, when we were both students. We met in Kharkiv even though, before that, we had spent our entire lives living in the same small town in the Kherson region.

We always had a very warm and deeply trusting relationship. Circumstances meant that we spent a great deal of time apart, so the expression that “long-distance love doesn’t work” certainly doesn’t describe us. Every time we met was special. We tried to surround one another with care and valued every minute we could spend together.

We had so many plans. We wanted to travel, finally live together, start a family, have children and build our lives together. I always felt we were looking in the same direction. I loved his ambition, his desire to develop himself and his plans for the future.

Then 24 February 2022 came.

I woke up in Kharkiv to explosions. There was such an intense glow outside the window that it seemed as though daylight had already arrived, although it was still night. At that moment I wasn’t thinking so much about myself. I was worried about Vlad.

Vlad is a serviceman with the 36th Separate Marine Brigade. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he and his comrades defended Mariupol. Initially the brigade defended the approaches to the city. As the encirclement tightened, they moved further inside. One of their principal defensive positions became the Illich Iron and Steel Works.

Day and night they held their positions under artillery, mortars, Grad rockets, tanks and aircraft. They lived at their positions under constant fire. Food, drinking water and medicines gradually ran out inside the blockaded city. They were exhausted and losing comrades, but they continued defending it.

Vlad tried to contact me, his relatives and friends every few days. He told me very little about what was really happening in Mariupol. I think he was trying to protect me. But all of us understood how desperate the situation was because the city was completely surrounded.

Even when I could hear in his voice how exhausted he was, Vlad tried to remain positive. He believed it would soon end, that the city would be relieved and they would be able to get out. I held onto that belief with him.

We spoke by telephone for the last time on 3 April 2022. During that conversation Vlad told me for the first time that he had suffered a leg wound. He immediately tried to reassure me: nothing serious, everything was fine. Only later did I learn from his friends that this wasn’t his only injury.

I didn’t know on 3 April that I was hearing his voice for the last time. I didn’t know that after that telephone call days would pass, then months and then years in which I would no longer have the simple possibility of hearing him.

Parish: What happened after contact was lost?

Mandzina: On 12 April 2022, reports began appearing widely in the media that some defenders at the Illich works had been captured while others had managed to break through to Azovstal.

I didn’t know where Vlad was among them. I didn’t know whether he had broken through, whether he was wounded, whether he had been captured or even whether he was alive.

From 12 April, an entirely different stage of my life began: searching for Vlad and fighting for him.

We contacted state institutions, his military unit and every organisation from which we hoped we might obtain some information. At the same time, we tried to find anything we could ourselves.

I constantly watched photographs and videos of prisoners appearing on different information channels. I stared into people’s faces with one hope: that I would recognise his. At that stage any detail could become a clue — a photograph, a few seconds of video, somebody’s message. Anything that might bring me a little closer to answering the most important question: where is Vlad, and is he alive?

Throughout this time I continued sending messages to him. Before the full-scale invasion it was an ordinary part of our lives: wishing one another good morning, writing during the day and saying goodnight in the evening.

When Vlad disappeared completely, I continued writing anyway. Every morning, “good morning”. Every evening, “goodnight”. Day after day, without receiving a reply.

Perhaps this was my way of preserving one small part of our ordinary life. Somewhere inside myself I didn’t want to accept that our conversation had simply stopped.

April passed. Then May. Then June.

Only in July 2022 did we receive official notification from his military unit that Vlad had been captured during combat on 12 April. His captivity was confirmed through the International Committee of the Red Cross.

It might seem impossible to feel relief when somebody tells you that the person you love is a prisoner. But after months of absolute uncertainty those words contained the most important information in the world to me: Vlad had been captured alive.

In September we received our first letter from him through the ICRC. It was very short and essentially formulaic. Vlad wrote that he had been held in the Russian Federation since 12 April 2022, that he was alive, that he had been wounded, was receiving the necessary medical treatment and was waiting for an exchange.

There was almost nothing personal in it. There was no opportunity for him to explain what was really happening, to ask questions or simply to say whatever he wanted to say to the people he loved.

But the most important words to me were: “I am alive.”

After months of searching, I was finally holding a letter Vlad himself had written. It wasn’t a document from his military unit. It wasn’t information somebody else had passed to us. It was his handwriting. His hand had written those words.

And after that, uncertainty began again.

Parish: What do you know about him today?

Mandzina: We tried to find information through servicemen returning from captivity. We showed people Vlad’s photograph and asked whether anyone had seen him, knew where he was being held or knew what condition he was in. We wanted to know whether his wounds had healed, how he was physically and how he was coping psychologically.

We found nothing.

Then, in October 2023, a video appeared in the Russian media showing Vlad and two of his comrades on trial. Vlad was sentenced to 27 years’ imprisonment and the other two men to 28 years each. They were accused of allegedly shooting civilians in Mariupol.

That was the first time we had seen Vlad since his capture.

He was thin. Exhausted. His expression was heavy. He spoke words that sounded rehearsed.

It is very difficult to describe what you feel at such a moment. You see the person you have spent so long searching for, the face you have wanted to see for all those months, and you realise that he is alive. Yet at the same time you discover that he has been sentenced to 27 years.

You want to be happy about just one thing: I can see him. He is alive.

But while watching him you are also trying to read everything he cannot say — from his face, his eyes, his voice and his movements. You try to understand what has happened to him during all this time and what lies behind the words you are hearing.

After repeated enquiries, the Russian side confirmed that Vlad was being held at a penal colony in the temporarily occupied part of Donetsk region. He has been moved between different places of detention during his captivity. As far as we know today, Vlad is being held with a significant number of other convicted Ukrainian prisoners of war at Kirovska Correctional Colony No. 33.

Occasionally we receive letters from him — perhaps once every few months, although sometimes six months pass between them. Through these letters we learn isolated details about his life. He says he works inside the colony and reads books.

So I cannot say we know absolutely nothing about him. The letters give us some connection with Vlad. I can see his handwriting and read his words. But sometimes small details appear between the lines that say much more.

He mentions problems with his teeth, bleeding gums and back pain. You seize upon every phrase because there is virtually no other way to discover his actual physical condition.

What is particularly painful is reading that, as time passes, the men are beginning to lose faith in an exchange. We are already in the fifth year of captivity. I understand why that faith becomes harder to sustain with every passing year.

Parish: The defence of Mariupol is often associated internationally almost exclusively with Azov. What should foreign readers understand about the other defenders?

Mandzina: It is extremely important to me that the world knows about all the men and women who defended Mariupol.

The Azov Regiment became one of the most recognisable symbols of the city’s defence, particularly internationally. But the defence of Mariupol is not the story of one unit.

Alongside them stood servicemen from the 36th Separate Marine Brigade, border guards, National Guard personnel, police officers and members of other units of Ukraine’s Defence Forces.

I see no reason to divide them according to whose contribution was greater or more important. They defended the same city together. They endured encirclement together and experienced extraordinarily difficult conditions together.

Each formation had its own sector, positions, casualties and story. I would like foreign readers to understand that the expression “defenders of Mariupol” cannot be reduced to the name of a single unit.

Parish: How did the Kharkiv demonstrations begin, and who participates today?

Mandzina: The Free Azov demonstrations in Kharkiv began thanks to a woman we call Mama Ira. Her son is an Azov serviceman who defended Mariupol and Azovstal. She was the person who began bringing together families who were also waiting and searching for their loved ones.

Today Mama Ira has her son back.

But she hasn’t stopped coming.

She continues to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are still waiting. To me, that says an enormous amount about this community. The return of your own loved one doesn’t mean that you forget the people beside whom you have travelled this road.

One person’s return brings tremendous joy and hope to everyone, but we continue standing while other families are still waiting.

The principal driving force behind these demonstrations remains the families of prisoners and missing defenders. For many, it isn’t merely an opportunity to remind people about their relatives. It is also an opportunity to be among people who understand their pain better than anyone else.

You don’t always have to explain yourself or search for the right words. The people beside you are living through the same waiting and the same uncertainty, and they are still trying to believe.

Volunteers, civil society organisations and veterans’ centres also participate. Their presence is tremendously important because the struggle to return our defenders must not become the responsibility of their families alone.

When people who haven’t personally experienced captivity stand beside us, it means society remembers and our voice becomes stronger.

They fought for us. Now we fight for them.

There is another side to how these demonstrations have changed, and it is much more painful.

When I first began attending, the people beside me were principally relatives of Marines who had defended Mariupol. We are still coming today. We are still fighting and waiting for people captured during the defence of Mariupol.

But time passes, and new families of Marines join us — people whose relatives disappeared or were captured at Krynky, in the Kursk, Donetsk and other sectors.

That is one of the most painful changes for me.

Not everyone whom families have been awaiting since Mariupol has returned, yet beside us there are already new people carrying new photographs and names and beginning their own stories of waiting.

They look at those of us who have been waiting for nearly five years and realise something terrifying: nobody can tell them how long their own wait will last.

Parish: What, in practical terms, are these demonstrations intended to achieve?

Mandzina: They have several important objectives and I don’t think it is possible to choose just one.

One is to draw international attention to Ukrainian prisoners of war and missing persons. We need people to speak about them outside Ukraine. We need international human rights organisations, foreign governments and international institutions to use whatever mechanisms they have that might help bring our people home.

Ultimately that is our most important objective: to bring them home.

Behind all the petitions, demonstrations, placards and constant campaigning, every family has one very simple wish: for the person they love to come home.

It is equally important to remind Ukrainian society constantly about the prisoners and missing. The war has lasted many years and people inevitably learn to live within this reality. But we cannot allow captivity to become something ordinary or gradually disappear into the background.

Behind the expressions “prisoner of war” and “missing in action” are real human beings — somebody’s sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers.

They are people who stood up to defend their country and whose families are still waiting for them.

Parish: Do you believe this campaigning produces tangible results?

Mandzina: Yes, I see results, although I wouldn’t attribute them exclusively to demonstrations.

They are one component of a much larger effort by families. There are meetings with Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights and representatives of the Office of the President. Families approach different state bodies, seek information, ask questions and constantly remind officials about those who remain prisoners or missing.

Work outside Ukraine is equally important: international visits and information campaigns, meetings with embassies, ombudsmen and international organisations. Families take every opportunity to talk about their loved ones.

I couldn’t say that one particular demonstration or meeting resulted in a particular person coming home. Prisoner exchanges are an extraordinarily complex process and it would be wrong to attribute them to one person or one action.

But all this work keeps our prisoners and missing people visible. People continue talking about them. Their names are spoken. Their stories become known beyond Ukraine.

Then an exchange happens and somebody for whom people have been fighting finally comes home.

You may never know which meeting, petition, demonstration or international visit made the difference. But you understand why you did all of them.

As long as our people remain prisoners, we cannot allow ourselves to stop talking about them.

Parish: What is the hardest part of this experience for families?

Mandzina: Families encounter psychological, legal, financial and other problems, but perhaps one of the hardest things is the absence of reliable information.

It is especially difficult for families whose loved ones are missing. You can spend months or even years not knowing what happened: whether the person is a prisoner, whether they were wounded, where you should look or whom you should ask next.

Even when captivity is confirmed, the uncertainty doesn’t disappear. You might know that somebody is a prisoner but not where they are being held, in what conditions, what their health is like or whether they are receiving necessary medical treatment.

The psychological burden is enormous.

You live permanently waiting for information. A telephone call, a message or news of an exchange can make your heart stop because every time you think: perhaps this time there will be something about him.

Meanwhile, ordinary life doesn’t stop. You have to work, raise children and deal with everyday problems. In Kharkiv you add air-raid alerts, bombardment and constant danger.

You continue living an ordinary life insofar as that is possible, but part of you remains somewhere else all the time — beside the person from whom you are waiting to hear.

Perhaps the hardest thing is that you don’t know how long the waiting will last.

For one person it ends after several months. For another, after years. Some still don’t even know where their loved one is.

For a family, waiting really ends at only one moment: when your person comes home.

Parish: What have returning Ukrainian prisoners told you about conditions in Russian captivity?

Mandzina: Unfortunately, from the testimony of our defenders who have returned from Russian captivity, we know about extraordinarily harsh conditions.

They describe beatings and torture, electric shocks, psychological pressure and humiliation, brutal interrogations, insufficient food, inadequate medical treatment and poor sanitary conditions.

We can also see the condition in which our defenders return: severe weight loss, evidence of injuries and torture, exhaustion and illnesses acquired or aggravated during captivity, including tuberculosis.

Sometimes you only have to look at someone after their return to understand something of what they have endured.

That is why international scrutiny of the conditions in which Ukrainian prisoners are held is so important. Access by international organisations isn’t merely about monitoring detention conditions and compliance with international humanitarian law.

For a family it can provide the most important confirmation imaginable: your loved one is alive. Somebody has seen them.

When you have had no contact for years and don’t know precisely where your loved one is or what condition they are in, even that information is enormously important.

We need the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international institutions to have genuine access to Ukrainian prisoners of war, to see the conditions in which they are held, speak with them and monitor the guarantees provided under the Geneva Conventions.

For us this isn’t a question of formalities or international procedures.

It is a question of whether our loved ones remain alive and whether, one day, we will see them come home.

Parish: Kharkiv itself is under repeated Russian attack. Does that make these demonstrations more difficult?

Mandzina: I wouldn’t say that people in Kharkiv have to be persuaded to come.

Perhaps the opposite is true. Living in a frontline city creates a particular understanding of the price being paid so that we can remain here, work and simply live.

Kharkiv experiences the war constantly. Air-raid alerts, bombardment and explosions have become part of our reality. Perhaps that makes us understand particularly acutely that between our ordinary lives and the war stand actual human beings: our defenders.

Obviously the security situation affects demonstrations.

But even when an air-raid alert begins, our demonstration doesn’t end. We go down into the Metro, which serves as a shelter, and continue there.

There are people in the Metro too. They see our placards, photographs and the names of our defenders. Even during an air raid, therefore, the demonstration doesn’t lose its purpose. Its message continues to be heard.

When the all-clear sounds, we return to the street and continue.

Kharkiv residents don’t need anyone to explain to them that the war continues. They hear it, see its consequences and live inside it.

Perhaps that is why there is a particular solidarity here with our defenders and their families.

Parish: What can governments, journalists and ordinary people outside Ukraine actually do?

Mandzina: From foreign governments, above all, we need support, assistance and genuine engagement in returning our prisoners of war.

It is tremendously important that exchanges take place regularly and that international partners use the political and diplomatic mechanisms available to them to exert pressure upon the aggressor state towards this objective.

We feel the problem particularly acutely now, when exchanges are less frequent and the number of defenders being returned is declining. We also see problems with exchange agreements not being fulfilled, being disrupted or postponed.

From journalists, above all, we need publicity.

Please continue talking about Ukrainian prisoners of war. Tell their stories and the stories of their families. Draw international attention to the problem. Publicity is one of the instruments available in the struggle to bring our people home.

It is important that prisoners aren’t discussed only when there is a major exchange or some dramatic event. For as long as people remain in captivity, the issue must remain constantly present — in the media, in international forums and in conversations with politicians and representatives of international organisations.

We don’t expect impossible things from ordinary people outside Ukraine either. Talk about our prisoners. Share information. Attend demonstrations. Support initiatives organised by their families.

All these things help prevent the issue from disappearing from international attention.

Our principal objective remains unchanged: to bring our people home.

Parish: Finally, if Vlad could read this interview now, what would you want to say to him? And what would you say to all the Ukrainian prisoners whose families continue demonstrating in Kharkiv and other cities?

Mandzina: If Vlad could read this now, the first thing I would probably say is:

We are waiting.

We are waiting just as we waited on the first day, during the first month and throughout the first year.

I don’t know what you can say to somebody who has already spent nearly five years in captivity to ask him to endure just a little longer. To believe for just a little longer. Particularly when his letters tell me how difficult it becomes to preserve that belief after so many years.

But I desperately want Vlad to know that he has something to come home to.

Life has changed. We have changed. An enormous amount of time has passed — time that was taken away from us.

But the most important thing hasn’t changed.

He is still awaited.

I remember our conversations, our plans and the life we wanted to build together. I still want us to have the opportunity to return to that life.

And to all our prisoners of war I would say:

Please hold on. People are waiting for you here, and people are fighting for you.