Contact Us

Ukraine soldier's ordeal offers view into prisoner swaps

Ukrainian soldier Glib Stryzhko's mother knew he'd fallen into Russian hands but it wasn't until her gravely wounded 25-year-old son made a secret phone call to her that she found out where he was.

  • 4
  • 9
The comrade called Stryzhko's mother, who was horrified to hear the news but somehow hopeful now she knew her son was alive. "This man had our phone number. Glib had given it to him, as if he was expecting this to happen," his mother Lesia Kostenko, 51, told AFP. "That was when we started to look." Her son was posted at the Ilych steelworks in the thick of the battle for Mariupol. That conflict attracted global attention because of the civilians trapped in another steel plant, Azovstal.