The interview conducted: Biljana Jovićević
The scheduled meeting with former marine Roman Borshch — now a civilian again working for a government communications body after recovering from captivity, dressed in olive-green attire with full reminiscent of President Volodymyr Zelensky — eased some of my fear or discomfort, if you will, about interviewing a man who, less than half a year ago, was a prisoner of war on European soil in the 21st century. I hoped to get answers to the questions that interested me without crossing the line of decency with to much journalistic intrusion.
There was no sign of the gaunt face of a POW, as seen in a December post by his wife Oksana for Ukrainska Pravda — but the same warm smile was there, with a touch of nervousness matching mine. That same early afternoon, together with the organizer of the visit, Mykhailo Dankanych — director of the “Platform for Priority Project Development (PDP)” and founder of the “Break the Fake” project (part of the public organization “Community of the Ukrainian Army – CAU”) — they had an event at the European House. But they told me that Montenegrin media didn’t seem very interested in hearing Roman’s story.
I, on the other hand, was surprised by their surprise. I explained that the most of media outlets as well as ruling political majority here — despite empty phrases about the EU path, NATO, and European integration (only for ears of Brussels bureaucrats) — are emotionally more sympathetic toward Ukraine’s aggressor, and that alignment with EU policy is typically expressed only when absolutely necessary.
Unfortunately for Ukraine — less for us — the event at the European House confirmed my fears. I was told that only one journalist showed up.
Before that, Roman and I had talked extensively, as he was willing to patiently answer all my questions. The fact that Roman Borshch is not only a soldier but also a journalist and communicator helped make the conversation smoother. When the war broke out — suddenly but not surprisingly — on the morning of February 24, 2022, he was a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ministry of Health. Without hesitation, he headed to his unit to defend Mariupol, as a trained marine. Before military service, Roman had been a journalist at Ukraine’s Espreso.
Even though he was newly appointed as a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, then-26-year-old from Ternopil in western Ukraine concluded that defending Mariupol — a strategically vital port city on the Azov Sea in the Donetsk region (partially occupied since 2014 by pro-Russian forces backed by the Kremlin, which declared the illegitimate “Donetsk People’s Republic” – DPR) — was a more urgent task. He rejoined the 503rd Special Battalion of Ukrainian marines.
Mariupol had already been targeted multiple times — despite the so-called Minsk II peace agreement (repeatedly violated through years) — and even experienced brief occupations by DPR forces. Strategically important, the city became one of Russia’s key targets during the full-scale invasion in early 2022. In May 2022, Russian forces managed to occupy Mariupol. Ukrainian marine Roman Borshch was captured earlier — in late March 2022 — during direct hand-to-hand combat in the city and remained in captivity until the end of last year.
Although he didn’t see or hear from anyone he knew for 33 months, he claims he was lucky — because he remained on Ukrainian territory, albeit occupied by pro-Russian forces. He says the physical torture occurred “mostly” at the beginning, during the separation of prisoners, when Russian military police — joined with local pro-Russian collaborators.
Five prison colonies in 33 months – "a little" beating and torture counts as "luck" compared to others
"That’s normal," explained Roman Borshch — a man who, throughout our conversation, gave the impression that he genuinely doesn’t want to portray himself or what he went through as a victim ordeal. He’s fully aware that many of his compatriots are enduring much worse hell than he did — no matter how absurd that sounds.
Borshch: As soon as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, my friend and I drove to Mariupol early in the morning on February 24, because our military unit was stationed there. By the fourth day of the invasion, Mariupol was surrounded from all sides. It became one of the most critical points of attack — not just because of the brutal close-quarters street fighting, where you could see the enemy up close, but also because the city was constantly bombarded with artillery of every caliber — from mortars to massive aerial bombs. The Russians were deliberately destroying the city, with no regard for collateral damage to civilians.
These were intense fights. And as you may know, soldiers in such combat situations mark themselves to distinguish friend from foe. From the start, the Russians began wearing white armbands — which, by the common laws of war, is the color used to mark civilians. But they used it anyway. On March 23, 2022, I was captured by fighters of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).
Antena M: How long were you held captive? Were you kept in one place or transferred between prisons? What happened to you there — can you describe it?
Borshch: I was in captivity for just over 33 months. I was held in five of the main detention sites in the Donetsk region. First was Olenivka — which you may have heard of — then the Donetsk detention center, Horlivka, Kirovske, and Sparshuv.
Antena M: You were detained on Ukrainian territory, though under their control? They never transferred you to Russia during that time?
Borshch: That was my luck, so to speak.
Antena M: Why did they move you from prison to prison so often?
Borshch: Olenivka was the first stop — a filtration point where they brought both military personnel and civilians. Then they began dividing us into different groups. For example, they were ordered to sort the defenders of the famous Azovstal steelworks — about 1,000 people — for transfer to Russia. Those captured Azovstal fighters were immediately moved to Russian territory, while the rest of us were kept for a few months in the Donetsk detention center, then transferred to Horlivka. I spent around two years in a POW facility for Ukrainian soldiers in Horlivka.
Antena M: What were the conditions like? And who guarded you — Russians from Russia or local pro-Russian Ukrainians?
Borshch: Interestingly, Ukrainian prisoners of war were not guarded by the Russian military police, but by regular prison staff — those who usually handle common criminals. In fact, we were supervised by the occupation administration — let’s say, Ukrainian citizens — and occasionally, members of Russian special forces were also present.
According to our POW Coordination Headquarters, there are already over 300 locations where Ukrainian prisoners are held.
Antena M: Soldiers only, or civilians too?
Borshch: Both. For soldiers, it’s straightforward. But the civilians — that's where it gets complicated. These are people held without any charges or trials, arrested during raids under suspicion of cooperating with the Ukrainian army. Some of them have been imprisoned like that for over three years, completely cut off from the outside world, with no contact with their families.
Antena M: Are any of these facilities at least somewhat acceptable?
Borshch: Only a small number of sites where Ukrainian POWs are held can be described as decent. Most of it, especially those inside Russia, are in such poor condition that they couldn’t be shown to any international commission. Food is of poor quality, beatings happen either regularly or constantly, and prisoners are sometimes forced to stand in place for 16 hours a day... things like that.
Antena M: Did you personally experience that kind of treatment?
Borshch: I was fortunate to be in the occupied part of Donbas, where conditions were better than in Russia.
Antena M: What does “better” mean, exactly? How were you treated by the local occupiers?
Borshch: I wasn’t isolated and alone, which is often the case with prisoners taken to Russia. It was a fenced-off prison colony made of barracks, and we could move relatively freely within the compound and enclosed yard.
Antena M: Was it already a prison before the war or built for the purpose of housing POWs?
Borshch: It was a regular prison, but before we arrived, they emptied it by simply releasing the criminal inmates. We had beds and bedding — and now, from what I’ve learned from other prisoners, I realize that the three daily meals we received, although poor, were better than in most other places. We also had minimal access to healthcare.
Antena M: Did your family know where you were? Were you allowed any contact with them?
Borshch: Ukrainian POWs were not allowed to communicate with anyone. I know there were attempts to send letters through the International Red Cross, but while I was there, that wasn’t possible. However, in 2022 — before the DPR was formally annexed into Russia and still had some autonomy — there were cases when guards would take letters and pass them to families, or allow us to receive some. But everything was checked and censored.
My family knew I was a prisoner, of course. The best communication came through volunteer networks — when someone was released, volunteers would show them photos and ask: ‘Have you seen this person or that one?
Antena M: During those 33 months, did you ever have a chance to see or speak to your family?
Borshch: During the period I mentioned — when things were a bit more relaxed — a few letters were passed along. But phone calls were out of the question, and in-person visits were impossible. These are temporarily occupied territories and extremely dangerous, so personal contact was not an option.
Local pro-Russian Occupiers vs Russian Special Forces
Antena M: How did they treat you personally? May I ask whether you were tortured or had any particularly harsh experiences, considering you held a relatively high position in the public administration before the war?
Borshch: When we talk about the horrible things happening in Russian prisons, it’s well-known that there is a so-called ‘reception tradition’: beatings, electric shocks, dogs... all sorts of things. That’s how it begins for the newly captured — you’re harassed, beaten…
Antena M: Did you experience that too?
Borshch: ...Yes, I went through that especially in Horlivka, where I was not only received by local guards, but also by Russian special forces.
Antena M: So they were in charge of the abuse?
Borshch: Yes - yes, they were the ones in charge of that.
Antena M: How did you survive those 33 months in captivity?
Borshch: I would like to wrap up the topic of treatment: this might be just a trend I noticed, but I would say that Ukrainian POWs on occupied Ukrainian territories were treated more humanely than those held inside Russia. I’ve confirmed this through conversations with many others who were imprisoned in Russia. So yes — conditions were somewhat better in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk than in Russia itself. I never once heard of anyone being treated better in Russia.
Antena M: Back to your own experience — were you only tortured at the beginning, like a kind of ‘welcome ritual’, and not later?
Borshch: You see, in Horlivka, sometimes the guards would beat you just for their own entertainment, even if you hadn’t broken any rules. They would just come up with some excuse and beat you.
Antena M: How often did that happen?
Borshch: Not constantly, but from time to time. The hardest moments for me personally were when Russian special forces were present. For example, in November 2023, every time you went to lunch, you had to walk past them lined up on both sides — and they would hit you with batons as you passed. And then the same thing on the way back from the canteen.
Antena M: Do you know anyone died as a result of such abuse during your captivity?
Borshch: Yes, I know of one case. When I was at the Donetsk detention center, there was a man with pre-existing health issues. They beat him during an interrogation so severely that his kidneys were damaged. People just watched helplessly as he suffered for four or five days in his cell. He was constantly in agony.
Antena M: And they didn’t help him?
Borshch: “hey gave him one dose of painkillers a day. But when things got really bad — right before he died — people knocked on the doors, calling for the guards: ‘Come here, the situation is getting worse, call a doctor, do something.’ The guards would just say, ‘Wait a bit, the doctor is coming.’ But in the end, the man died, and they just carried his body out of the room.
Antena M: How many soldiers were held in Horlivka, where you spent the most of captivity?
Borshch: The largest number was in the first colony — about 1,500 people were housed in several barracks.
Antena M: How many barracks were there?
Borshch: Five - they were two-story barracks, each holding around 200 people.
Antena M: Did you have heating during winter?
Borshch: We had coal-burning stoves. In some barracks, the heating worked decently, but in others that had been poorly refurbished to hold more people, the heating was very bad. People had to sleep fully dressed to stay warm.
Antena M: What happened when someone got sick? Did you get sick, and was there any medical help? What about those with chronic conditions?
Borshch: A number of people had AIDS, and they were given medication. I can’t say anything about the quality, but they did get treatment. Personally, when I had a 40°C fever, I got medication and even an injection, and was allowed to rest for a day. I didn’t have to follow the prison routine that day.
A Guard - Historian of Imperial Russia, Don't forgive criticism of SSSR
Antena M: What were your daily obligations? Did you have to work?
Borshch: In Horlivka, the day started at 6 AM — wake-up, then breakfast. If there was anything to clean or fix around the barracks or yard, we did that. Until the end of 2024, we were regularly mowing grass, carrying things, doing whatever tasks were assigned. But we were also allowed to read books.
Antena M: What kind of books, and in which language?
Borshch (laughs loudly): In Russian, of course. So no, it wasn’t constant forced labor. If there wasn’t work, we could stay inside, read, or talk with others.
Antena M: Can you tell me what was going through your mind during all that time? Did you have any source to hear what was happening at the front? What thoughts and emotions were you dealing with? Did you believe you'd be released soon, and how?
Roman straightened up slightly in his chair, unclenched his usually clasped hands, and replied in a firm voice:
Borshch: All our defenders — even those who ended up in Russia — we all believed and they still believe we will be freed. Without that kind of belief, you can’t survive!
Prisoners are mostly kept in an informational vacuum, which is fertile ground for propaganda. Sometimes, they’d bring us local newspapers from the so-called DPR, glorifying their leader Denis Pushilin. The papers were full of propaganda, portraying everything as great in the DPR. They even published front-line reports claiming they destroyed dozens of Ukrainian planes daily, hundreds of tanks — things like that. Even the guards sometimes laughed at those reports, saying: if any of that were true, Ukraine wouldn’t just be defeated — entire armies of other countries would be too.
Antena M: Did anyone actually believe in that kind of propaganda?
Borshch: Imagine being held for so long with no outside contact, constantly being told the same things — yes, some people started believing. They’d say, ‘Look, it can’t all be fake, maybe some of it’s true.’ Some even thought things were getting better — that everything was blooming and being rebuilt.
Antena M: Was that a small number of people or...?
Borshch: It was a minority — mostly people who were emotionally worn down. In the end, everyone wants to believe that their small homeland is doing better. That’s human psychology.
Feeling Like I Was in Orwell’s 1984
Antena M: And you personally?
Borshch: Of course I never believed in their propaganda. Interestingly, some of the local guards sometimes wanted to chat with us prisoners — on their own initiative. I also spoke with various guys from different regions of Russia (special police), from Siberia, Altai, Belgorod Oblast —the distance thousands of kilometers apart — yet the narratives they told me were nearly identical.
The first thing they all said was that every Ukrainian soldier is a ‘fascist.’ They genuinely believed we served a Nazi-fascist regime, and that they — for the second time in history — had to rise up and defeat Nazism.
Antena M: So, you believe they truly believed that narrative?
Borshch: Let me give you a typical example: Ukrainian artillery would hit something, and they'd come and say, ‘See, you killed civilians and children — this is what fascists do. We are fighting fascism again, just like in the past. This is what your side does — it's fascism, and we’re here to stop it through our special operation.’ They truly believed that.
Antena M: But when the ‘special operation’ dragged on for years, did they show any doubt? ‘Special operations’ don’t last three years. Do you think they had any insight into the real situation at the front?
Borshch: Honestly, I often felt like I was living inside Orwell’s 1984. Let me tell you a story. One of the guards — an inspector (I won’t name him at his request) — was fairly educated and loved talking about history with prisoners. Once he invited me over and asked what I thought of the Soviet Union. Now, keep in mind, he wore symbols of the Russian Empire on his uniform.
So I thought, okay — since he wears imperial symbols, I need to be careful how I speak about the USSR. So I said, ‘Well, the Bolshevik Revolution led to the fall of the Russian Empire.’ Then I suggested that maybe the imperial system would have been better for Russia.
After that conversation, he immediately made me do 100 push-ups, then forced me to publicly declare that the Soviet Union was a great country and that its collapse was a tragedy that led to this war.
Antena M: But you said he seemed educated?
Borshch: Yes, he looked and acted like it — but that’s the contradiction.
Antena M: How did you end up on the exchange list and get released at the end of last year?
Borshch: It was December 27, 2024. A few of us were called in by the prison administration in Kirovsk.
Antena M: So you have been transferred from Horlivka to Kirovsk?
Borshch: Yes, I was in Horlivka until June 2024, then spent the rest of my time in Kirovsk. They asked me whether I would agree to be released if there was an exchange. I said of course. Then I went back to the barracks.
After lunch, they gathered us — those selected for release — and took us away without telling us where. We first arrived at another camp in Torev, spent the night, and then joined another group of POWs. From there, we went to Taganrog airport, flew to Belarus, and finally crossed the Belarusian-Ukrainian border by bus, where the exchange took place.
Antena M: Do you think your previous government work — not senior, but still — and experience as a journalist helped you get better treatment or led to your release?
Borshch: I’m not sure if I should say this publicly, but I’ll tell you anyway: I gave them the minimum amount of information about myself. The fact that I was once a journalist and civil servant could have been used as a reason to treat me worse or even prosecute me.
Captivity Was Never an Option — Only Breakout or Death
Antena M: As a young millennial born in Europem did you ever imagine going through what you experienced in the 21st century?
Borshch: Even when the fighting started in Mariupol, I never considered captivity. I believed we’d either break the siege or die. Captivity wasn’t something I even imagined.
Antena M: What was the first thing that crossed your mind when you became a POW?
Borshch: When I saw people wearing white armbands around me, my first thought was: this is the end of the road — the end of the story. There were beatings, torture… but once the process of registration started, and I realized this was a big war, with POWs on both sides, I immediately thought: there will be a prisoner exchange, sooner or later. That gave me a bit of relief.
Antena M: You're now 29. When Russia first invaded Eastern Ukraine in 2014, you were very young. Did you think then that it would turn into the full-scale war we’ve seen for three years now?
Borshch: This was building for a long time. But human psychology always leans toward hope — you hope the worst won’t happen. We hoped for a diplomatic or military solution without full-scale war. Even when foreign intelligence services warned about Russian troop build ups, people thought: it’s just drills, pressure — not an invasion.
Antena M: But when the invasion began, you didn’t hesitate — you immediately joined your unit. You didn’t think: this is a superpower, we don’t have a chance, maybe I should stay in civilian service?
Borshch: Some people make excuses, saying it’s a ‘politicians’ war’, or they’ll join ‘only when the enemy is at their doorstep’. But the point is: if you wait for them to reach your home, it's already too late. You must join the defense where the front is, not in your street. That’s every responsible citizen’s duty — regardless of gender. We have many women in the army. For me, this is clear: it’s our obligation to defend our country.
Antena M: Do you think most of your peers feel the same way? I have to ask you because the average age in Ukraine’s army is around 43.
Borshch: Almost all the people I know from my circle joined the army.
Antena M: Where are you originally from? I know you live in Kyiv now, but where are you?
Borshch: I’m originally from Ternopil Oblast in western Ukraine. I’ve been living and working in Kyiv since 2016. But in response to your previous question — the fact that Ukraine has successfully resisted for over three years says more than I ever could.
A Message Against Disinformation: Russia Attacks the Mind First
Antena M: Finally, can I ask for your opinion about how the world is responding to the Russian invasion, particularly allies like the EU and U.S.? Under the previous administration there was strong support, but not as much now with Trump returning. Do you feel betrayed by those you counted on?
Borshch: I don’t consider myself qualified to comment on international politics, but on a personal level — I’m deeply grateful to all our partners, in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere, for their support. It truly helps our flight. We must understand that we are in this together.
If we let this imperialist evil from Russia spread, it won’t stop with us. Europe will be threatened too — this is our common fight.
Antena M: Is that your final message, or do you want to add anything else?
Borshch: Yes, my last message would be: I urge everyone to think critically — always. Be cautious about the news and information you consume. That is the last sphere where Russia fights — the mind. First, it manipulates information. Then come the weapons.
Everything starts with disinformation. That’s why I’ve returned to my original profession — communication.
The interview with Roman Borshch was conducted in three languages. He understood the questions in English and used the language during informal conversation, but for clearer expression in his native Ukrainian, the translation into Montenegrin was provided by the Embassy of Ukraine in Podgorica - we extend our gratefulness.
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