Over the course of the next two years, Ms Checheliuk was held in a prisoner of war camp in Olenivka and detention facilities in Taganrog and Mariupol, where her health rapidly declined.
Natalya Checheliuk, her mother, said her daughter became “very ill” and developed bronchitis. “Despite treatment… her health did not improve. She lost a significant amount of weight, her immune system weakened, her hair began to fall out, and she suffered from amenorrhea [an inability to menstruate],” Mrs Checheliuk said.
Ms Checheliuk wrote a poem for her mother during her captivity, which she read back on Ukrainian soil.
“I long to see you mother, to tell you how it was for me there / How I yearned for your eyes, how I wanted to end my life / How I endured all the pain and agony, how I trembled with fear / How every scream and knock made my own name from my head disappear,” she wrote.
“Maybe I’ll come back to you, mother / No, I will come back, hear? I’ll come at dawn in the morning, in your heart you will feel me near.”