He was willing to die, but not to surrender

After spending seven days hiding in a damp and dark tunnel deep in the bowels of Mariupol’s sprawling Azovstal steel mill while the city burned around him, Pfc. Oleksandr Ivantsov was on the verge of collapse.

President Volodymyr Zelensky had ordered Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their weapons after 80 days of resistance and surrender. But Private Ivantsov had other ideas.

“When I signed up for this mission, I realized that I was most likely going to die,” he recalls. “I was ready to die in battle, but morally I was not ready to surrender.”

He knew his plan might sound a little crazy, but at the time he was convinced that he had a better chance of survival by hiding than by surrendering to the Russians, whose widespread abuse of prisoners of war was well known to the Ukrainian forces.

So he punched a hole in the wall to get to a small tunnel, hid some supplies and made plans to remain hidden for ten days, hoping that by then the Russians who had taken control of the destroyed factory would let their guard down. abandonment, allowing him to crawl unnoticed through the ruins and make his way to the city he once called home.

But after a week he had gone through the six cans of stewed chicken and ten cans of sardines and almost all of the eight one-and-a-half-liter bottles of water he had hidden.

“I felt really bad, I was dehydrated and my thoughts were confused,” he said. “I realized I had to leave because I couldn’t live there for another three days.”

Ivantsov’s account of his escape from Azovstal is supported by photos and videos of the town and factory that he shared with The New York Times. It was verified by senior officers and by medical records documenting his treatment after he reached Ukrainian-controlled territory. Yet his story seemed so far-fetched that Ukrainian security services made him take a polygraph test to assure them he was not a double agent.

Mr. Ivantsov is still fighting for Ukraine, aiding a drone unit outside the pulverized city of Bakhmut, where he recalled his story one sunny afternoon. He spoke reluctantly, saying he could not share certain details to protect Ukrainian soldiers from Azovstal, who is still being held as prisoners of war, and from civilians in the occupied territories who helped in his escape.

Private Ivantsov, 28, was thousands of miles from Ukraine when Russia began its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. He worked as a maritime security officer, protecting ships from Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, near the Red Sea.

He had lived in Mariupol for eight years, he said, when it was a city on the rise. “They made roads, parks, an ice palace, swimming pools and gyms,” he said. On March 14 he enlisted in the Azov regiment, a former far-right militia group which had been absorbed into the Ukrainian army and led the defense of the Azovstal factory.

By then, the battle for Mariupol had already secured its place as one of the most ferocious of the war. While the Russians reduced the city to oblivion, thousands of civilians and soldiers barricaded themselves inside the extensive network of bunkers beneath the factory, a complex about twice the size of Midtown Manhattan.

As the Ukrainian forces became more desperate, the military leadership in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, decided to carry out a daring operation to fly over enemy lines in support. Private Ivantsov volunteered for the mission, knowing he might never return.

On March 25, his low-flying Mi-8 helicopter, against all odds, evaded Russian anti-aircraft batteries and landed on the factory site, delivering desperately needed supplies to the thousands of Ukrainian soldiers holed up there. A total of seven flights would come through in the coming weeks.

But it wasn’t enough. When Private Ivantsov arrived in Azovstal, the soldiers had run out of ammunition for many of their heavy weapons and were running low on anti-tank mines and mortars. The citizens had to survive on dwindling rations.

“There were a lot of very seriously injured people with gangrene,” he recalled. “They were rotting there and slowly dying.”

And every day the Russian noose around Azovstal tightened.

On May 16, after it was clear that Ukrainian soldiers were no longer an effective fighting force, Mr. Zelensky ordered them to surrender.

It would take four days to complete the process, giving Private Ivantsov plenty of time to reconsider his plan. But his mind was made up.

“I told everyone about my decision, and before they left I shook hands with them all,” he said of his compatriots, 700 of whom remain in Russian captivity. “Those who had money gave me money.”

On May 20, 2022, the last Ukrainian soldier surrendered and soldier Ivantsov went into hiding in the tunnel. In addition to the food and water he had stashed, he had some coffee, tea and sugar, as well as a mattress and a sleeping bag.

Most importantly, with Covid still a major problem, the factory was littered with bottles of hand sanitizer.

“It burns very well,” he says. “You can even cook with it.”

Sometimes, he said, he just stared at the flame. When it broke up, he was in total darkness.

“It reminded me of the movie ‘Buried Alive,’” he said.

As the days passed, the once incessant thunder of bombs raining down on Azovstal was replaced by an unsettling silence.

On the seventh day, when the water was almost gone, he knew he had to leave. He put on civilian clothes, threw away his weapons and ventured onto the factory grounds. When he looked up at the sky for the first time in days, he said, he was struck by the brilliance of the stars.

He also noted that the Russian soldiers in control of Azovstal did not bother to hide their positions. “The patrols going through the factory were using flashlights and talking loudly,” he said.

Private Ivantsov easily avoided them, ducking under train cars when one came too close for comfort.

It took six hours, he said, and the sun was rising when he reached the ruined city. It was difficult to put into words what he saw.

“I saw animal bodies, human bodies,” he said. “There were pieces of bodies. An arm could be lying around, a dog could pull it somewhere.”

Rescue from Azovstal was only the first step.

“The plan was to go to the neighborhood where I used to live,” Private Ivantsov recalled. “I thought that if I saw familiar faces, I would ask them for help: to wash, eat, etc.”

But nothing would go according to plan. The city he had known was destroyed. Even the people he had known before the invasion were like strangers. He couldn’t trust anyone.

He soon realized that his only hope of evading capture was to leave the city and head west into Ukrainian-controlled territory. He would still need help, and it was clear he had to be careful who he asked for help.

“I always looked first to see if I could approach and assess the person,” he said. He would not have survived without the kindness of strangers who helped him, often at great risk.

“In one village an old woman gave me water from a spring to drink,” he said. There were others he did not want to discuss.

He was captured once while still in the city, he said, declining to reveal further details. Reaching the front would take him 18 days, crossing approximately 200 kilometers behind enemy lines.

At this point his feet were bloodied and his back and knees hurt so much that he had difficulty walking; he had lost more than 25 pounds. When the time came to enter Ukrainian territory, he said, he was operating on pure adrenaline.

He considered crossing a river that formed a natural barrier between the forces, but found it too dangerous. Ultimately, he decided to simply drive the last 10 to 15 miles overland, passing mines and other booby traps.

“I had nerves of steel, no emotions, no thoughts, just purpose and cold calculation,” he said. “So I tested myself mentally. I had already come to terms with my death.”

But he made it, looking wild and crazed as he struggled to convince stunned Ukrainian soldiers that his unlikely story was true.

Eventually they believed him, and when he was driven from the front on his way to Kiev for medical care and rehabilitation, he stopped at a gas station and bought coffee and a hot dog.

He had never tasted a better hot dog, he said, or had a better cup of coffee.