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Volodymyr Tsema-Bursov, liberated soldier of 56th Brigade, lost 38 kg in 20 months of captivity and got “bunch” of diseases. PHOTOS at LINK
Hanna Kuratsanovska
News Censor.NET War in Ukraine
10.02.24 12:29
Source: https://censor.net/en/n3472709

A month ago, Vladimir Tsema-Bursov returned from Russian captivity. After the exchange, the 41-year-old man is undergoing treatment in a medical facility in Poltava.

This was written by journalist Hanna Kuratsanovska in an article bySvoi.City, Censor.NET reports.

As noted, Volodymyr Tsema-Bursov lived in Mariupol with his family - his wife and young daughter. He is a soldier with the 56th separate motorised infantry brigade. Before the full-scale invasion, Volodymyr was a burly man - at 191 cm tall, he weighed 95 kg. In April 2022, he was taken prisoner of war by Russia from the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works, where he spent 20 months.

During this time, his weight dropped to 57 kilograms. During the month that Volodymyr was at home, doctors diagnosed him with many diseases, some of which became chronic.

According to the soldier, on the morning of 24 February, he was on duty at the checkpoint in military unit A0989 in Mariupol, and later they were placed near the school, in one of the administrative buildings of the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works.

Attempts to escape from the environment

“One day, we received information that the head of one of the units of the Mariupol garrison and some of his men had surrendered to the Russians. Our positions around the plant were exposed, and the enemy was given the green light. Then there were talks that we would not be able to hold on to the plant, so we had to look for ways to get out of the enemy’s ring. On 8 April, we lined up in a column and made several attempts to leave the plant. But the head of the column was smashed by Russian artillery, so we returned to the plant.

There were those who believed in a ‘conspiracy theory’ - they said we were being ‘merged’ because as soon as we started, artillery fire immediately began, destroying equipment and killing people,” he recalls.

“We managed to get out of the plant, crossed the road on Karpova Avenue, and hid in an abandoned agricultural enterprise... Our journey ended near the collapsed bridge connecting Kamianske and Staryi Crimea. We turned around and drove back, looking for other ways out of the encirclement. And at one of the checkpoints, we were stopped, offered to get out of the car and walk with them, there was a pavilion for a conversation to establish identity.

“The ‘Rosgvardeytsia’ wrote us all down, took us to the Kamianske SIZO, which was not working, and had apparently been recently decommissioned. There we spent 3-4 hours in cells with windows without glass, then our hands were tied, we were loaded onto KamAZ trucks and transported to Sartana. Two days later, at night, we were put on buses and brought to Olenivka colony in the morning,” the soldier adds.

CAPTIVITY in Olenivka

“On command, we go out one by one. We are met by a ‘chopper’, each of us says our surname, name and patronymic and runs to the barracks along the ‘living corridor’. There are three on the left and the same number on the right. Each of them is holding an “instrument of labour” - some have a truncheon or a rubber stick, others something like a cutting board or a strap with metal inserts. Each of them hits you with whatever they can find,” Tsema-Bursov recalls.

LATER the prisoner was transferred to another colony.

“I am currently undergoing treatment in a medical facility in Poltava region. My health condition is much worse than I expected. I have, as they say, a “whole bunch” of diseases, including chronic gastritis at the acute stage, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) - a disease of the human digestive system, chronic prostatitis in remission, etc.”, the released prisoner of war sums up.