Today, we have not one Hero, but two at once – this is a couple from Energodar, Oleksii and Olha. Before the full-scale invasion, our Guardians of the Light lived an ordinary life: they worked at the Zaporizhzhia NPP, traveled along the Azov coast, and had extensive plans for the future. But the arrival of russia in their hometown brought its own ruscist adjustments. Instead of traveling, resting, and happy moments together, there were basements, interrogations, prisons, tortures, and deportation from Energodar.

Back in December 2021, Oleksii first heard from his mother that a full-scale invasion would begin, but it seemed like nonsense to him.

“My mother’s lady friend lives in russia,” the resident of Energodar shares. “Once she called that friend and urged her to leave the country, saying that a 200,000-strong army was being prepared in the swamps to attack Ukraine. The russian woman found out about that from her son, who was involved in the army, but she did not name the reason for the attack. My mother and I talked about mentioned call, I laughed at the absurdity of the information, as it seemed to me at the time, and we closed that topic until February 24, 2022.”

The nuclear employee was at work that terrible day. He learned about the full-scale invasion from his colleagues, who were informed about the shelling and attack by their relatives from Kharkiv and Kherson. According to Oleksii, on February 27, the ruscists first made their way to Energodar with a demand to surrender the city, but they were refused. Therefore, from March 3 to 4, russian security forces captured both the town and the Zaporizhzhia NPP.

Later, the plant employees were called to work, assuring that the enemy would not interfere with the performance of their duties. As a result, Oleksii and his wife worked until February 1, 2024, until Ukrainian personnel were withdrawn from the nuclear facility. Those nuclear employees who refused to conclude worthless contracts with rosatom.

Until mid-summer, the couple tried to survive in the occupied town. However, one call to the territory controlled by Ukraine turned their life into a real scenario of horror movie.

“On July 31, 2024, I called my relative from Lviv,” the resident of Energodar recalls, “we talked for a short time, and I went to the store to buy bread. Suddenly, a bus drove up to me, a man of strong build got out from it. He was dressed in civilian clothes, but asked to show my documents. After that, he invited me into the car to talk.

The door opened, a stranger pushed me inside. There were three masked security officers sitting there. I fell to my knees, they handcuffed me and began to interrogate me. They were interested in who I had talked to that day, and what I had talked about. Then they asked where my wife was and forced me to call her.

According to the legend of the occupiers, I had forgotten the key to the doorphone at home, so I asked Olha to let me into the entrance hall. When she came down, she was also taken on a bus. At first, we were brought together to the fossil power plant, but we were separated afterwards, sugar bags were put on our heads, wrapped with tape, and we were taken in different directions.”

Later, during interrogations, Oleksii found out that the fsb had received an order to check him, so they had been following him for six months. The reason for the arrest was allegedly communication with a relative who had left for western Ukraine. They even demonstrated a recording of their conversation. Although the men used a secure connection, the ruscists managed to record the conversation.

Once, Oleksii and Olha saw from the window how an invader was wandering around the house across from theirs, with something in his hands that looked like a tablet. Apparently, the enemy was installing listening equipment at that time. The couple suggests that their lady neighbor turned them in to the fsb, and that occurred probably out of jealousy. To coin a phrase, they do not work anywhere, but they live a good life.

“First, they brought me to Melitopol to the former premises of the Securitty Service of Ukraine,” the nuclear employee recalls. “While they were driving, the ruscists asked many questions, mostly of an intimate nature. I clarified why they were interested in that information, they just giggled.

I was put in a prison cell 130 x 180 cm in size, lined with tiles. I sat on the bare cold floor. The toilet was a 5-liter bottle, and once a day I had a moldy baked pudding, some beans or corn, and boiling water with a tea bag. But not always they gave me tea, it depended on the shift. There were guards who complained that because of people like me, Bandera supporters and ukrops, “their boys are dying,” then I didn’t get any tea.”

At first, our Guardian was simply interrogated; after a certain period of time, they tried to persuade him to cooperate, and then they even offered to give up his wife, convert to Islam, and marry two ork women at once. Oleksii did not accept any of the offers, and in response, he heard from a kadyrovite that Olha would soon be tortured in front of his eyes. Fortunately, that did not happen, but they never told him where his wife was.

Subsecuently, the resident of Energodar was awaited by a polygraph, because according to the ruscists, the nuclear employee gave too little evidence and was very reticent about something. The Ukrainian was warned: if he did not pass that test, he would be physically punished.

“I do not know whether I passed the polygraph. Most likely, yes, but according to the enemy, definitely not,” the prisoner explains. “Then the ruscists decided to use the “mobile game” on me. They got me naked, sat me on a chair welded to the floor, put my feet in the foot basin filled with water, and two terminals connected to a mobile phone were attached to my genitals and chest. After that, they started calling me on the phone, and I started “watching cartoons”. I was unwell.

The last thing Oleksii remembered from those tortures was how he, shocked with current and exhausted, was dragged into the prison cell and something was poured into his throat. The man thought it was vodka. When they poured it, they commented: “so that his motor doesn’t stop working.”

The resident of Energodar recalled another “wonderful” day of his captivity – August 3, 2024, when he was brought boiling water and a bag of tea:

“I took that tea and started looking somehow as if through the walls. The floor was moving like waves, I was shaking, and the ruscists wer asking if I was still with them. Then I remember people in white overall checking me on a drug tester and asking what I was taking. Then I started seeing drones, and I was hidding under the bed. Because of that behavior, the doctors put a straitjacket on me.

I came to myself after five days, and in total, I was there for ten. As it turned out, it was the Berdyansk psychoneurological dispensary. All that period they injected me with something twice a day and gave me some pills – perhaps they were taking me out of the state in which I was brought to them. I was recovering from that “tea”" for a month, it was difficult and terrible.

I was released with recommendations to register with a local psychiatrist. I hardly had time to leave the medical facility when the ruscists were already waiting. A bag on my head – and they were taking me somewhere again, kept me until the end of the day, and at night they handed me over to the law enforcement officers so that they could issue a “curfew violation.” After that – the Melitopol court, where only the judge and I were present. They sentenced me to 25 days in prison, sent me to a temporary holding facility.”

Our Guardian had several terms of mentioned type. That is, as soon as Oleksii was released after serving his sentence, he was again met by masked ruscists, and then, according to the established scheme – curfew violations, courts and a holding facility. Those were located in Belozerka, Akimovka, Kamyanla-Dniprovska, Vesele, and recently – in Energodar.

In the Vesele detention facility, Oleksii met his Olha. As it turned out, she was also held there and forced to deliver food to the prisoners.

“We saw each other three times a day,” the man says. “Physically, the ruscists were not touching my wife, but they were draining her morally. According to their open declaration, they like to torture Ukrainians, because we are a moron nation, and tortures bring them moral satisfaction.

Sometimes Olha and I were taken out, with bags on our heads, somewhere and forced to sign something. I do not know what it was, but it definitely was not a contract with rosatom. Once they clearly told me that I was dangerous to them, and I should not be in the town. I asked to kill me, and let my wife go. The ruscists reacted aggressively to that and said that death should be deserved.

Nevertheless, in December 2024, I was deported. When they issued their respective papers, they proudly declared, “we have given you life as present”. I replied to their statement, that I would definitely return to Energodar, but I would not meet them there anymore, because they would be either in the swamps or in the next world.”

Through Georgia, Oleksii reached Germany, where a long-term casual friend of his mother was living. Although the man had lived in that country for over 24 years, his russian roots made himself felt. The resident of Energodar had been listening to the odes to russia from the owner of the apartment for more than a month, and even heard him talking to russian women once. The ork women urged their former fellowcountryman to kick the Ukrainian out of the apartment. Then the Guardian decided to return to Ukraine.

Olha was released by the ruscists only in 2025; three months after her husband had been deported. On July 31, 2024, the couple was separated, and the woman was also taken to the premises of the former department of the Melitopol Security Service of Ukraine.

She was held for several days, then sentenced, and was taken to the Vesele detention facility on August 3.Oleksii was in a psychiatric unit at that time.

“When my wife saw me for the first time after my capture, she started shouting for shock, joy, and happiness at the same time,” the nuclear employee recalls. “She said that my eyes were running in circles, and my gaze was somewhat confused, distant. Olya was worried that I was no longer among the living creatures. She immediately brought tea and halva. We were very happy to meet; it became somehow warmer in the soul, a desire to stay strong in that hell aroze. ”

First, the nuclear employee was incriminated by the ruscists for what she knew and did not tell about the “cooperation of her cohabitant with the Security Service and the Armed Forces of Ukraine”. Then she was imprisoned for allegedly following in her husband’s footsteps and giving up the positions of the orcs herself. Moreover, it became even more interesting later.

“The last term was given to Olya because her 30-year-old son served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Oleksii says. “But the fact is that my wife and I do not have children. After the orcs read the verdict, Olya clarified when exactly she had given birth, because she could not remember that. They emphasized she had a son, and that was not an issue for discussions.

My wife has an explosive character: she is impulsive and emotional; she is as smart as a steel trap. Sometimes the ruscists got tired of her, especially when she needed many things from medicines and hygiene products. They asked if there would come a time when she would not need anything from them. She replied, “It will come when I’m home!”

Before the deportation, my wife spent a month and a half “in the basement”, and for last four days she was chained to the battery and did not receive any food. She was sitting with a bag wrapped in tape over her head. It was so tight that Olya’s blood circulation was disrupted, and she periodically lost consciousness.

After four days of such torture, a man came to visit her; he brougt with a black suitcase, there was food in it. The woman saw canned food and a bag of something incomprehensible, similar to the Yupi drink. The stranger dissolved the powder with water and gave her to drink. After that, her wife started to feel vertiginous, her heartbeat accelerated, and her eyes became cloudy. At that time, they were interrogating her about something. The next day, she tried to remember what the conversation was about, but she could not.

She was not told any word about deportation. When they brought her to the border with Georgia, it was a pleasant surprise. Once, Olga’s mother brought her a package with medicines and hid my mobile number there. Fortunately, the orcs did not find the note, and Olya learned it by heart. She called me from Georgia and told me the good news; before that, we had not communicated for three months. Now she is also in Ukraine.”

The Ukrainian woman lived by captivity and prison for the first two weeks. She constantly remembered and talked about the horror she had experienced. She relearned how to use a mobile phone to do it without anxiety and panic, and practiced writing messages to someone and not rushing to delete them. Unfortunately, Olha broke her health in russian captivity, she was offered treatment at the Heart Institute of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, so the woman will soon undergo rehabilitation in the capital.

According to the couple, they were conditionally close and knew they were both alive; that helped them to survive in russian captivity. The thought about soon end of that horror also warmed them.

Oleksii and Olha address their enemies calmly, without any emotion: “Boomerang exists! Therefore, we wish the ruscists to feel everything that we, Ukrainians, have felt! Besides, we advise those residents of Energodar, who sold their hometown and country, who started to collaborate with the enemy and surrendered their own, to run away and drop out of sight. We will return to the Ukrainian Energodar very soon, and there will be no place for them!”

* The names of the interviewees have been changed for security reasons.
** The photos are illustrative.