Volodymyr, un insegnante di storia dell’Ucraina occidentale, difese Avdiivka e trascorse 808 giorni in prigionia. Ha detto di essere stato fulminato in parte perché era un insegnante di storia, e i russi volevano “rieducarlo”.

Volodymyr Zhylenko – a history teacher from Balta – voluntarily joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. He defended Avdiivka, was captured, and spent 808 days in captivity. 

“My school teachers instilled in me a love for history. I understood that this subject is especially important during the formation of Ukrainian statehood,” Volodymyr said.

On the first day of the invasion, Volodymyr, with his backpack already packed, went to the military enlistment office. At first, he served as a rifleman-medic. 

On March 26, 2023, during an assault near Avdiivka, Volodymyr was wounded and, along with several comrades, captured. At first, he was held in the occupied territory of Donetsk region, and later transferred to a Russian penal colony. Altogether, he spent 808 days in captivity. 

Due to his wounds, Volodymyr spent a long time in hospitals, where he sometimes had brief exchanges with staff:

“One nurse, after returning from vacation, said she’d been at the seaside. ‘Now the sea is ours,’ she said. I told her it already was – I meant the Azov Sea, no one had taken it from them. She just replied, ‘You’re no fun to talk to.’”

When the Russians found out that Volodymyr was a history teacher and had his own views about the invasion and history, they decided to “re-educate” him:

“They brought a device called ‘Tapik.’ My teeth were chattering, my hands were shaking, the stool broke apart – but even then they didn’t want to film another video. It seemed they’d lost interest,” Volodymyr recalled.

In June 2025, Volodymyr was released as part of a prisoner exchange. He said he began to realize he was truly going home while still in Belarus. After returning, he described being overwhelmed by emotion:

“When I finally got my phone, I couldn’t sleep from all the messages and news. My wife spent half the night sending me phone numbers of my friends, comrades, and relatives so I could call everyone.”

Now, Volodymyr is undergoing rehabilitation – but admits that he dreams of returning to his students and teaching again as soon as possible.

[https://suspilne.media/odesa/1123505-808-dniv-u-poloni-vcitel-istorii-z-balti-akij-oboronav-avdiivku-povernuvsa-dodomu/](https://suspilne.media/odesa/1123505-808-dniv-u-poloni-vcitel-istorii-z-balti-akij-oboronav-avdiivku-povernuvsa-dodomu/)

As a Ukrainian history teacher he knew there was evidence Russians were historically cruel to Ukrainians.

They re-educated him to understand that as entirely factual.

Typical Russians.

They’re digging into their bloodlust by restarting where their rotten ancestors left off [in the early 1930s with their systematic murdering of the Ukrainian intelligentsia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executed_Renaissance) thus staying true to their trashy mythologizing and groundless assumption to be the Slavic *Übermenschen* and [“first among equals” among East Slavs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Russian_nation).

Russians just keep showing how incapable they are in facing up to how they’re not at all paragons of culture, intellect, and civilization. They get genuinely offended and feel threatened by Ukrainian intellectuals because the latter’s mere presence punches a hole in the infantile narrative that ~~Russians~~ “**Great** Russians” and their culture are superior to what any ~~Ukrainian~~ ~~Little Russian~~ [*khоkhоІ*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/khokhol#Noun) could ever stand for.