Excruciating video shows Evgeny Kovtkov, a prisoner of war in Ukraine, visibly confused as to why his girlfriend risked jail or death from Vladimir Putin’s thugs by fleeing their homeland
A Russian woman has risked her life by travelling to Ukraine for a reunion with her prisoner of war boyfriend – but he wasn’t exactly thrilled to see her.
Footage of their excruciating meeting in Kyiv highlights the emotional scars of Vladimir Putin’s war. Russian captive Evgeny Kovtkov, 34, is baffled and overwhelmed that Irina Krynina, 37, travelled to see him with her two daughters – as he discovers she faces jail or death from Putin’s thugs if she returns.
She is shocked at his loss of weight and his insistence that he wants to go back to Russia, even as she tells him how he and his comrades have been used as cannon fodder by the Kremlin. The pair have not been together since he was enlisted one year ago and sent first to occupied nuclear city Energodar before being forced to the frontline near Bakhmut.
He was captured on 7 July, and Irina accused Putin’s regime of “lies” of PoW exchanges – so without telling anyone, negotiated with the Ukrainians about coming herself to see him. But his first words to her when they met were a whispered: “What the f** for ?”