If Satan has a residence on Earth, it is in Russia: the story of former Kherson mayor Volodymyr Mykolayenko, who survived Russian captivity.
After seeing Russia from the inside, he described it as a moral void, completely incompatible with Ukraine.
In captivity, he survived purely through willpower—holding on by sheer determination. When he finally returned home on August 24, 2025, it felt as though he had grown wings.
What struck him most was the way Ukrainians welcomed the released prisoners. From the Belarusian border all the way to Chernihiv, crowds stood along the roads waving Ukrainian flags. For the first time in a long while, he felt genuine respect and love.
Mykolayenko neither hid nor fled, even though he had the opportunity. He joined the Territorial Defense Forces because he asked himself a simple question: who else would protect his family?
He was given an assault rifle, but quickly realized that rifles alone cannot stop tanks.
The Russians lured him to a meeting under false pretenses, threw him into a car trunk, and took him away.
In captivity, he was beaten almost daily and suffered a broken rib. The occupiers offered him the position of head of the occupation administration, but he refused.
They demanded that he publicly condemn Roman Shukhevych, yet Mykolayenko instead called him a Hero of Ukraine.
Later, he was transferred between detention facilities—first to occupied Crimea, then to Russia’s Voronezh region, where the beatings became even more severe.
He never received a single letter from his family. He even refused prisoner exchanges, insisting that wounded young soldiers should be released in his place.
In his view, this war did not happen because of abstract mistakes. It happened because of geography and irresponsibility.
Russians chose Putin twenty-five years ago, and many continue to support him today. At the same time, too many members of Ukraine’s elite behave as if they have a “backup country”—Paris, Prague, New York—places they can escape to while blaming the people who were left behind.
But most Ukrainians have no alternative. There is no second homeland. There is only Ukraine.
According to Mykolayenko, the true strength of the country lies in its people—those who have survived occupation, torture, and loss, yet continue to fight.
Victory rests on two pillars: the soldiers who destroy the occupiers every day, and the civilians who do everything they can each day to ensure that the army can keep fighting.
He himself endured for the sake of his family and his faith in victory. He is proud of his daughter, who has been fighting since the first day of the war, and hopes that his grandchildren will one day be proud of both him and their country.