Halya Coynash: Imprisoned in Russia-backed Donetsk ‘republic’ for not abandoning her elderly mother

Those who assume that Ukrainians who remained in Donbas in 2014 supported the Russian-backed militants should consider the fate of 46-year-old Marina Chuykova. She has been held prisoner in the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ since March this year. She sent her two sons away from Horlivka in the Donetsk oblast as soon as the fighting began, but could not leave herself. Her elderly mother was adamant that she would not leave the city she had lived in all her life, and in which her husband had died. Chuykova had no choice but to remain with her mother, although she visited her sons who have, by now, completed their studies and are active volunteers in Kharkiv. It may have been those visits or her enforced trips to government-controlled Ukraine for supplies and to withdraw money and her mother’s pension, that attracted the attention of the DPR militants. Her sons, Savva and Artur, are adamant that any accusation of ‘spying’ is nonsense.

Read more here.