KYIV: Since his release from a Russian prison in April, Stanislav Tarnavskyi has been in a hurry to build the life in Ukraine he dreamed about during three years of captivity.
The 25-year-old has proposed to his girlfriend, bought an apartment and adopted a golden retriever. And that was just what he accomplished one week in July.
But as busy as he is rekindling old relationships and creating new ones, Tarnavskyi cannot shake the trauma he and thousands of other Ukrainian soldiers experienced as prisoners of war. The UN says many endured beatings, starvation and humiliation at the hands of their captors — experiences that will leave lifelong scars.
Tarnavskyi, who was captured during the battle for Mariupol in April of 2022, regularly has nightmares about the prisons where he was held.
“I see the officers who watched over us. I dream they want to harm me, catch me,” he said. When he wakes up, his heart pounds, anxiety surges — until he realizes he is in the outskirts of Kyiv, where he was forced to move because Russia occupied his hometown of Berdiansk.
