NeoDutchFella🇪🇺🇳🇿🇺🇦🇳🇱🌻🇬🇱

“Six or seven men were beaten to death in front of me.” Oleksandr Hurzhov survived more than three years of russian captivity. He witnessed prisoners being beaten to death in Taganrog. He was tortured, beaten almost every day and denied medical care. His weight dropped from 82 to 40 kg. He was allowed to send just one letter home. It arrived in September 2022. His mother recognized his handwriting — but knew something was terribly wrong. Their secret signal was there: three dots at the end of a sentence. For years, his family didn't know whether he was alive. On May 25, 2025, Oleksandr finally came home. This is what russia does to Ukrainian prisoners of war. Never look away. #FreeUkrainianPOWs

He took a bullet to the face. His jaw was shattered, 10 teeth knocked out, and he lost 1.5 liters of blood. But Ukrainian soldier Maksym Dzhalalov, call sign “Jaja” of the 3rd Assault Brigade, refused to die. During an assault to retake a position, he was shot in the face. He lay down, placed his AK on his chest and closed his eyes, convinced these were his final seconds. Then he opened his eyes, picked up his rifle and kept fighting. As russian soldiers began climbing out of their trenches, he shot one after another. Until he suddenly started choking, coughed — and spat out a tooth. It flew straight into the open bolt of his AK-47. The rifle jammed. He was lying there, face-to-face with a russian soldier. Neither could shoot. Neither had a grenade or a knife. Someone else eventually killed the russian. Jaja somehow crawled to safety, losing consciousness along the way. The bullet had torn through his carotid artery and jugular vein. Doctors gave him almost no chance of survival. He made it. When doctors were trying to figure out how to remove the bullet, he typed on their phone: “The bastards couldn't finish me off. Neither will you.” He still dreams of returning to the infantry. But says he cannot let his brothers down. He calls himself an ordinary soldier. His brigade, he says, is full of men tougher than him. He was supposed to die that day. Instead, he told death: “Not today, brother.”