KYIV, Ukraine—Vadym Krypychenko was sure he was going to die.
His vehicle had broken down along the front lines in eastern Ukraine near the village of Verkhniotroitske. It was Aug. 10, 2015, only four days before the end of his military service commitment and his scheduled return home.
Krypychenko, a private in the Ukrainian army’s 53rd separate mechanized brigade, found himself alone in no man’s land. When an intelligence unit of separatists appeared and approached with weapons drawn, he assumed they were going to execute him.
“I was mentally ready to die,” Krypychenko, 36, tells The Daily Signal in an interview following his release Feb. 20 after 195 days as a prisoner of war in the hands of combined Russian separatist forces.
“It was a wonder that I lived,” he adds.
Months into his captivity, while isolated in solitary confinement and with his body covered in wounds from bouts of torture, Krypychenko turned to his religious faith, and even a little humor, to avoid succumbing to despair.
“I felt grateful to God,” he says. “I’m a believer. I was grateful that God saved me from the worst. I was still alive at least. But the hardest part was not knowing what to expect each day.”
In the dank solitude of his cell, Krypychenko would laugh to himself as he recalled funny childhood memories. In particular, he remembered a trip to a zoo as a boy when a friend stuck his fingers inside a bear cage.
“The bear bit off one of his fingers,” Krypychenko says, smiling. “At the time, it was horrible. But when I thought back on it, it seemed so funny for some reason. Humor is helpful in all situations.”
Torture and Wounds
Krypychenko sits in an office in a Kyiv hospital wearing loose blue scrubs. His dark brown hair is long and disheveled. He is clean-shaven and jokes about the beard he grew in captivity. Light blue scars line his pale face and the bridge of his nose.
He speaks softly and succinctly, sitting slightly hunched forward with his shoulders rounded. He seems tired but not exhausted, exuding an air of simultaneous relief and being slightly overwhelmed by his surroundings. Yet he cracks a small grin as he matter-of-factly explains the conditions of his captivity.
“A couple times, I felt like I was losing hope,” he says. “But I strengthened myself.”
