NOVOVOLYNSK, Ukraine - When Illia Muzyka, a 29-year-old border guard in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, was captured soon after Russia's full-scale invasion, he feared never seeing his fiancee again.
Unbeknown to him, Alina Panina was also taken as a prisoner of war (POW) a few weeks later in the same city. Now the couple are finally reunited and beginning to rebuild their lives in western Ukraine.
"I did not know whether she had been or still was in captivity," Muzyka told Reuters, as they recalled their extraordinary story.
"I kept thinking so much that it messed with my head," he said of his time in Russian captivity. "I must have buried her a thousand times in my head."
Muzyka and Panina have been together since 2019, having met through work. In 2021, they were posted to Mariupol's busy commercial port as dog handlers, inspecting cargo with their spaniels, Jessie and Sonia.
When Russia invaded nearly two years ago, its forces quickly surrounded Mariupol, razing much of the city and turning it into the deadliest battleground of the conflict.
Panina and Muzyka said they took up arms and deployed to the Azovmash factory to defend it, but they were separated on April 10 when she moved to a new location, taking both dogs with her.
Two days later, Muzyka was captured by the Russians, ignorant of his partner's fate.
Panina ended up at Mariupol's giant Azovstal steel works, where Ukrainian troops mounted a final, doomed stand against the Russians. After President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ordered them to surrender, she too was taken prisoner on May 17.
Speaking next to Muzyka at their home in Novovolynsk, in the far west of Ukraine, the 27-year-old said she was separated from the male fighters as well as from the two spaniels. Reuters could not independently verify their accounts.
"When they were taking me to Russia, we went by the place where the dogs were kept and they barked as I was driven away. This was the last time I heard them."
HUNGER THEN HAPPINESS
Panina said she was moved around several times in Russia and occupied Ukraine. She described her treatment by the Russians as harsh and remembered how her captors had lied to her, saying a defeated Ukraine had been carved up between Moscow and Europe.
Panina was released in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia in October, 2022, not knowing what had happened to Muzyka.
He was freed more than a year later on Jan. 3.
Muzyka said he was held at a Russian camp, the location of which he does not know, where he lost weight because he was not fed properly.
Russia's defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the accounts of Muzyka and Panina.
Ukrainian authorities estimate around 8,000 Ukrainians, both civilian and military, are being held captive by Russia. They say there have been about 50 exchanges involving about 3,000 people, mostly in the armed forces.
Moscow does not provide overall figures on the number of Russians being held by Ukraine.
After Muzyka was freed, his first question to his father was where Panina was. When told she had been back home for more than a year, he said: "I was beside myself, overwhelmed by emotions."
The couple were reunited in Kyiv.
"We had waited for so long to speak, to embrace, to talk," Panina added. "We were so happy."
Muzyka and Panina have decided to postpone their wedding. They had been planning to marry in March 2022, but Muzyka needs more time to recover.
They have a new spaniel, Roxy, who is a sniffer dog working with Panina in her new job as a customs guard in the western city of Lutsk. REUTERS
