The devastated daughter of a man captured while defending Europe from a repeat of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster says he's been abandoned to waste away inside a Russian prison cell.
Veronika Martseva, from Chernhiv, explained how her dad Shein Arkady Mykhailovych has been held in Russian custody for a year after being seized following a fierce firefight at the end of February last year.
Shein was one of 168 national guardsmen captured after the battle of Chernobyl. He and his comrades were taken to a site in Bryansk Oblast where most remain to this day.
Speaking with The Mirror, Veronika painted a grim picture of the abuse, radiation sickness and starvation her father and his fellow soldiers have suffered in the past 12 months.
Ukrainian servicemen take part in training exercises in the Chernobyl exclusion zone (AFP via Getty Images)She explained: "131 defenders of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are still in captivity. The boys return from captivity very thin, wasting away, hungry, with a bunch of new diseases.
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"And many have injuries showing signs of abuse and torture."
And in the year that has passed, she has had no idea about her dad's condition as they've been barred from contact.
She added: "It was not possible to communicate with him, and still is not."
A room where Ukrainian National Guard servicemen were held as hostages at Chernobyl (MIKHAIL PALINCHAK/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)Veronika has criticised the government in Kyiv, saying that if her dad's unit had refused to defend Chernobyl, they would be court-martialled for treason because "they took an oath to defend Ukraine".
"They fulfilled their duty and sacrificed their freedom. But our government unfortunately forgot about Our Defenders and betrayed them," she adds.
She said the government has focussed solely on retrieving the soldiers who gained worldwide attention, like those captured during the siege of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.
"Now the Ukrainian government is thinking only about how to protect the integrity of Ukraine," she said.
"But, unfortunately, it is not their priority to return all the prisoners home, they return only those who gained publicity abroad, for example, like Azovstal."
Russian soldiers are seen hours after the invasion (EyePress News/REX/Shutterstock)Within days of Vladimir Putin ordering Russian troops on to Ukrainian soil, Moscow's forces had seized the Chernobyl plant - the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster to date.
The move was branded an act of "nuclear terrorism" by Ukraine and its allies.
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But before taking control of the site, they faced a fierce resistance from a small group of national guard soldiers stationed there.
At the time, President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted about how the soldiers were laying down their lives to prevent a disaster of the likes seen only in 1986.
Damage and debris inside the power plant (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)He wrote: ""Our defenders are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated. Reported this to @SwedishPM.
"This is a declaration of war against the whole of Europe."
After they were taken hostage, Putin's boys seized the plant - but senior engineers immediately became concerned about their irresponsible behaviour.
The soldiers bunked in the radiation-tainted earth within sight of the imposing, deadly structure - too close to leave the plant unharmed.
With scientists and others watching in disbelief from afar, Russian forces flew over the long-closed plant, ignoring the restricted airspace around it.
They held personnel still working at the plant at gunpoint during a marathon shift of more than a month, with employees sleeping on tabletops and eating just twice a day.
Officials said they were shocked by the complete disregard for safety, or the ignorance, that the young soldiers displayed during the recent invasion.
Some are said to have even plundered the area for highly radioactive materials, or to sell on to collectors.
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