A Doomed Final Stand: Mariupol

The Telegraph

"When he proposed to me, I couldn't refuse We've been going out for three years, and I was hoping we'd get married anyway, but not for another year or two. The war, though, is speeding up our lives, and our time together now is shrinking."

"A female Azov fighter who was a trained lawyer acted as a witness."

"The day before, she had lost her own husband in the fighting, but she drew up the documents for our wedding anyway."

"We had no ceremony, no dresses or suits, and afterward the Russians attacked again. We had cluster bombs for our wedding instead of fireworks."

"He'd lost 20 kilos and looked gaunt, plus two of his comrades that I knew had died. At that point he began saying that he could die any day. He'd aged as well -- he looks 45 now, and inside he says he feels 100 years old."

"It is all very well for the UN to focus on civilians, but soldiers like my husband have risked their lives to defend Mariupol. They deserve some protection too."

Nataliia Zarytska, 36, Kyiv, Ukraine

The Telegraph "We got married while he was in the bunker"

 

Her husband is among the 2,000 fighters estimated to be left in Mariupol in the sprawling, now mostly destroyed steelworks factory's underground maze, holding out against the Russian troops ordered by Vladimir Putin to starve them out of the Azovstal plant. It was to be sealed so tightly that no one could enter or exit: "not a fly can get past". The tunnels have now been cleared of the hundreds of Ukrainian civilians who had taken shelter within from the non-stop Russian artillery and bombs.

A United Nations special mission had managed to evacuate all the remaining civilians, bringing them to safety. In the process, negotiating with the Russian military time and time again to respect the need to refrain from interfering with a humanitarian corridor to safety. Just as often as safe evacuation plans had buses, even taxis full of evacuees fleeing the conflict to safety, the Russian military managed to upend the plans by failing the agreement, forcing cancellations.

Now, at last, it is only the remaining fighters, most with the Azov Battalion, but others as well, left in the tunnels which Russian troops have now also entered, deploying for face-to-face combat. The Ukrainian militia fighters have had to cope with a scarcity of food, ammunition, water and medicine. Among their numbers are hundreds who are injured, whose untreated wounds are beginning to turn gangrenous and if they endure and somehow live, they will have to face amputation.

Among the fighters, one of the Azov Battalion members is a young man, Bogdan Semenets, who has been on the front lines of eastern Ukraine facing off against ethnic Russian Ukrainian separatists for the past five years. Within the Azovstal factory's subterranean depths a deadlined offer was twice posted and each time ignored, for the Ukrainian fighters to surrender, and they would have their lives spared. Semenets had few illusions; to trust the Kremlin's mercy was an exercise in futility. 

He was prepared to save a bullet for himself rather than surrender. "Better our commanders order us to kill ourselves than we give ourselves up", he wrote to Nataliia. Bogdan sent Nataliia a text asking would she marry him? "Yes", she responded. And so, on April 17 the two exchanged wedding vows online, the ceremony officiated by Bogdan's commanding officer who under military law could legally perform marriages.

Each sent the other signed wedding consent forms through the Telegram messaging channel. His was handwritten, bearing his commander's official stamp. They had originally met  through an introduction by a mutual friend. He was fighting at the time with Azov against the Russians in the Donbas region. They would manage to see one another whenever he was on leave. They shared a mutual interest in literature. The Russian-American author Ayn Rand one of their favourites, for her critiques of life under Soviet rule.

Nataliia hadn't heard from Bogdan through March into early April, after the war began on February 24. And then a flurry of communications caught up to her finally on April 9. And she was shocked to see how aged and thin he appeared. Last week, she among other wives of Azov fighters took part in a demonstration in Kyiv, where they pleaded for the Ukraine government and others to help save their husbands' lives.

They believed that if the international community would exert greater pressure on Russia, the Kremlin could be persuaded to permit safe passage for the fighters out of the Azovstal plant. Yesterday, a video conference surfaced from the factory where Azov commanders said they felt "abandoned" by NATO, from which they had been refused the supply of weapons. They said that 25,000 people had died in the fighting in Mariupol.

Finally, Bogdan's latest and perhaps last message to his wife was received this past weekend. Where he reminded Nataliia that this could be his final communication with her. "It can't go on like this much longer. We may not meet again. XXX", he wrote to his wife.

Nataliia Zarytska, with a photo of Bogdan Semenets, whom she had been dating for three years before she accepted his proposal   Credit: Heathcliff O’Malley for The Telegraph