Missing : Hero of Ukraine Recipient

"She was captured with her driver Serhiy, also a volunteer, driving an ambulance in a humanitarian corridor."

"I know that the Russian occupiers will torture them."

"Russian propaganda talks about her as a really dangerous woman, a killer, really violent, but that's not true."

"She was not only saving the lives of our soldiers, our civilians. She was also fighting for my future and for Ukraine."

"This is my job now, this is my duty. This isn't just about my mother, but the women, children and civilians detained illegally by Russia."

Anna-Sofia Puzanova, 19, daughter of hostage-taken volunteer ambulance corps founder, Ukraine 

Yulia Paevska is the founder of the volunteer ambulance corps, Tayra's Angels

 

Paramedics rushing in hope of using their emergency medical skills to save survivors of the Mariupol theatre bombing are now in an unknown place. While en route to the scene of the bombing knowing that over a thousand women and children were sheltering in the city and would be targets, Yulia Paevska while travelling to the bombing was taken by Russian troops.

She had stopped to treat a civilian wounded on March 15, who had been attempting to evade the Russian military's bombardment through a humanitarian corridor, when she was captured. Since then, her daughter Anna-Sofia Puzanova, has not seen or heard from her mother, apart from forced appearances in Kremlin propaganda videos.

She has no idea whether her kidnapped mother is safe, much less that she remains alive. Before the kidnapping they had spoken when the mother informed her daughter about rescuing civilians as they attempted escape from the Russian forces' constant bombardment. She believes, however, that it is likely her mother is being kept among thousands of Ukrainians in concentration camps in the Russian-held parts of the Donbas.

Her mother, whose nickname is Tayra, is listed as a prisoner of war whom the government of Ukraine is willing to exchange for captured Russians. Moscow, however has repeatedly refused any such requests for her release. She is the founder of the volunteer ambulance corps, Tayra's Angels, and as such considered a prize grab by the Kremlin.

The corps, Tayra's Angels, founded in 2014, is credited with saving over 5,000 lives and training over 1,000 volunteer medics. There is a grim analogy here with the White Helmets volunteer medic group in Syria also dedicated to rushing in wherever Russian planes bombed the civilian populations in Sunni-majority areas of the country, to save lives. And who were themselves bombed on arrival at bombed-out sites.

The White Helmet group turned to giving aid and practical support to their Ukrainian counterparts through video training and encouragement. In acknowledgement of her humanitarian efforts Paevska was awarded the national title of Hero of Ukraine, given to civilians recognized for outstanding service to the country. Her government is anxious to repatriate her. Russia is determined to prevent it.

 

Now, her daughter is mounting another type of campaign; one which would see her mother released, along with the release of an estimated five hundred Ukrainian women who have been captured by Russian troops. In Ukraine, ample evidence is documented of targeted bombings of civilians, deportations and relocation of children and women. 

Irina Dubchenko, a missing Ukrainian journalist, fits a larger pattern of Russian forces detaining Ukrainian women.  CNN