A Donbas Mother, Three Sons on Opposite Sides of War — SkimNews
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- Liliya Prutyan, a 56-year-old former medic in Ukraine's "Aidar" battalion, was captured near Mariupol within 16 days of the full-scale invasion, raped by a Russian soldier, held in detention in Donetsk and Rostov, and eventually exchanged as a prisoner of war before her trial on terrorism charges.
- Liliya's middle son married a pro-Russian Ukrainian woman, cut ties with his brothers, joined the Russian army, and later gave written testimony against his mother at her trial in Russia — a detail The New York Times highlights as the rupture at the family's center.
- Liliya's youngest son Dima, then 17, was left alone in the occupied village of Blizhney for three years; he survived a severe diabetes crisis, had Russian soldiers move into his home and steal his laptop, clothes, and his mother's jewelry, and was forced to obtain a Russian passport to access utilities, schooling, and humanitarian aid.
- Prutyan organized Dima's evacuation through a chain of drivers who passed him through Russia, Belarus, and Poland; he reunited with her in Kyiv in February 2025 — exactly three years after the invasion began — and described the meeting as feeling like greeting a stranger.
- Liliya and Dima now live in Dnipro with her demobilized eldest son; the middle son reportedly suffered a head injury from a drone strike, though Prutyan told The New York Times she chose not to ask for details.
Why it matters: The profile illustrates how the war has fractured Ukrainian families at the most intimate level — with one brother testifying against his own mother in a Russian court — while documenting the bureaucratic coercion of occupation, where residents must obtain Russian passports to access basic services like utilities and humanitarian aid.
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