TALLINN, Estonia (AP) – A famous Ukrainian doctor whose images were smuggled out of the besieged city of Mariupol by an Associated Press team was released on Friday by Russian forces, three months after being taken captive on the streets of the city.
Yuliia Paievska is known in Ukraine as Taira, a nickname she chose in the video game World of Warcraft. Using a body camera, he recorded 256 gigabytes of his team’s efforts for two weeks to save the wounded, including Russian and Ukrainian soldiers.
He transferred the clips to a team of the Associated Press, the last international journalists in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, one of whom fled with him embedded in a tampon on March 15. Taira and a colleague were taken prisoner by Russian forces on March 16, the same day, a Russian airstrike hit a theater in the city center and killed about 600 people, according to an investigation by the Associated Press .
“It was a great feeling of relief. Those are such common words, and I don’t even know what to say,” her husband, Vadim Puzanov, told The Associated Press on Friday afternoon, taking a deep breath to contain his excitement. Puzanov said he spoke by telephone with Taira, who was on his way to a hospital in Kyiv, and that he feared for his health.
Initially, the family had been silent, hoping that the negotiations would take place. But The Associated Press spoke to him before posting the smuggled videos, which eventually had millions of viewers worldwide, including some of the largest networks in Europe and the United States. Puzanov expressed gratitude for the cover, which showed that Taira was trying to save Russian soldiers as well as Ukrainian civilians.
Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy announced the release of Taira in a national speech.
“I am grateful to all those who have worked to achieve this result. La Taira is already at home. We will continue to work to free everyone, “he said.
Hundreds of prominent Ukrainians have been abducted or captured, including local officials, journalists, activists and human rights defenders.
The story goes on
Russia portrayed Taira working for the Azov Nationalist Battalion, according to Moscow’s narrative that it is trying to “deactivate” Ukraine. But the AP did not find such evidence, and friends and colleagues said it had nothing to do with Azov, who fought one last battle at a Mariupol steel plant before hundreds of its fighters were captured or killed.
The footage itself is a visceral testimony of his efforts to save the wounded on both sides.
A clip recorded on March 10 shows two Russian soldiers fired from an ambulance by a Ukrainian soldier. One is in a wheelchair. The other is on his knees, his hands tied behind his back, with an obvious injury to his leg. Her eyes are covered with winter hats and she wears white bracelets.
A Ukrainian soldier curses one of them. “Calm down, calm down,” Taira tells him.
A woman asks him, “Are you going to treat the Russians?”
“They won’t be so kind to us,” he replies. “But I couldn’t do it any other way. They’re prisoners of war.”
Taira was a member of the Invictus Games of Ukraine for military veterans, where he had to compete in archery and swimming. Invictus said she was a military doctor from 2018 to 2020, but has since been demobilized.
He received the body camera in 2021 to film for a Netflix documentary series about inspirational figures produced by British Prince Harry, who founded the Invictus Games. But when Russian forces invaded, he used it to film scenes of wounded civilians and soldiers.