Irina Glazov (51) sits in the small living room of her rented apartment in Petach Tikva staring out the window, looking at a typical Israeli landscape. It is doubtful whether she is noticing the sunny sidewalk and passers-by strolling leisurely. It is doubtful whether she can hear the quiet voices of the mothers and the joyful squeals of the children coming from the street. She is looking out, but her thoughts are wandering to her city, Mariupol, which is being crushed under Russian shelling, and in her imagination she can hear her daughter, Alisa, calling for help from thousands of kilometers away.
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"Alisa was arrested by the Russian army in mid-April," laments Irina in tears, "it's hard to describe all the horrors she's been through since then. As a mother, I am shuddering at the thought of the dark tunnel she's in. There is no light at the end of it. I'm afraid she won't last, that she won't survive if the State of Israel does not urgently intervene to save her; a young Jewish girl, who has never harmed anyone. This is literally a matter of life and death."
The story of 32-year-old Alisa Ipolitov, Irina's daughter, is a story of all the tragedy and absurdity of the war that has been raging through Ukraine for ten months now. There is so much pointless cruelty and a lot of suffering, but mostly a lot of mother's love, who is trying in every way possible to save her daughter from captivity, against all odds.
How does a young Jewish girl, who has never been involved in any fighting, find herself in captivity, and why is she still being held there? It is not logical at all. To answer these questions, we need to go back in time, to the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to the battle for Mariupol, which became one of the symbols of this bloody war.
"Alisa is a Russian language and literature teacher," says her mother, "but in the year before the war, she could not find a job in her profession. With no choice, in September 2021 she began working as the head of the dining room at a military base in Mariupol. Although she wore a uniform, she actually had nothing to do with the army, with weapons, or anything of the like. She wasn't even given a real rank."
Everyone who knows Alisa describes her as a girl with a heart of gold. She is sociable and always ready to help. She always took care of her little brother Anton and showered him with love. In addition, she had a boyfriend, and the two were already thinking about getting married in the future. All of this was shattered after the first missiles and shells landed on Ukrainian cities, early in the morning of February 24.
"How can you live?"
"With the outbreak of the war, Alisa was no longer allowed to leave the base in the evening," Irina recalls. "I saw her for the last time on March 8th. A few days before that, our electricity supply was cut off, then the gas was cut off, and the local residents started lighting bonfires in the street to cook food for themselves. That day she returned from the base for several hours, and we all went to her grandmother, my husband's mother. She lived in the suburbs of the city and she had an old-style wood-burning stove. Alisa had to return to the base, while we were stuck there for a whole month."
Irina is short with words, but behind her laconic story hides a huge drama. During the month that she and her son Anton spent in Mariupol, a bloody battle took place in the city. This was one of the most difficult battles during this war. The battle ended with the capture of Mariupol by the Russian army and the pro-Russian separatist forces of the Donetsk region. The Russian attack almost completely destroyed the city. Entire residential zones were totally annihilated and their residents buried under the rubble. According to Ukrainian authorities' estimates, more than 20,000 of the city's residents were killed in the bombings and shellings, in addition to about 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Another 4,000 military personnel were captured by the Russians, including, as Irina's family would soon find out, Alisa Ipolitov as well.
"During those long weeks, there was no communication and no internet. We couldn't make any telephone calls, so we didn't know what was happening to Alisa," says Irina. "We returned to our apartment a month later, when the city was already in Russian hands and found it destroyed. However, the real blow hit us when a friend told me that she had seen Alisa on the pro-Russian television broadcasts of the Donbas region, and she saw her there as a captive. Then our relatives in Israel found this video and they sent me a screenshot of my daughter. There was no doubt - it was Alisa."
During the battle in Mariupol, Alisa and other women hid in a shelter in one of the factories in the city," adds Itzhak Bondarev, a volunteer who has been dedicating his efforts since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine to get Jews out of the country. "Like other public shelters, this place had become a refuge for the most unfortunate and poor. In several cases it ended really badly: several hundred civilians, including a large number of children, who were in the underground shelter of the theater building in Mariupol, were killed following the shelling and collapse of the building.
"In this regard, Alisa was lucky – her commanders abandoned her and several other civilian military workers like her, in the shelter of the Ilyich factory, and the Russian forces entered and took them captive."
Another POW deal without her
Irina and her son realized that staying in the destroyed city of Mariupol was out of the question. Thanks to Rabbi Menachem Mendel (Mandy) Cohen, the Rabbi of the city, they left on May 7th.
This sentence just seemed so naive: Leaving the occupied city and crossing the lines of battle into the Ukrainian-held territory was impossible for any ordinary citizen and was almost like an espionage operation. Even today, the exact details cannot be disclosed publicly, but after a long and tortuous journey through Ukraine and Moldova, the Glazov family arrived in Jerusalem on May 19th – and were supposedly able to start a new life. "But how can I live, when my daughter is suffering through hell in captivity?" Irina asks in despair.
Irina has become more and more desperate in recent months. At first, it seemed that the chance of liberation was near. According to Irina, the small family started dealing with the mission of rescuing Alisa as soon as they arrived in Israel: "We tried to locate Alisa through the Internet, even though our relatives warned us that this might actually harm her. We could not sit here doing nothing and published a post on Facebook, calling on everyone who saw her or heard about her to contact us."
After our post was published, Irina was contacted by a woman who introduced herself as the head of the military canteen where her daughter worked. She explained that after being captured they were in the same cell in a detention center in Taganrog in southern Russia. The woman gave Irina the most shocking details about the conditions in which the captives were held. She said that guards would kick and abuse them, and told her that they only gave each of them 100 grams of bread and a portion of sauerkraut a day.
"On the one hand, my heart shriveled up when hearing all these details, as if a hot blade had pierced it. On the other hand, I was happy to hear this, because it proved to me that Alisa was still alive," claims the mother. "That's how I heard that many non-combatant captives were being held together there, and I understood from the head of the dining room that she was released from captivity as part of a prisoner exchange deal back in May. She didn't know anymore and couldn't tell me why Alisa was left behind."
In the following months, Irina wavered between the hope that her daughter would be included in one of the next exchange deals, and disappointment whenever it didn't happen, until she realized that maybe her daughter being abandoned in Russian captivity was no accident.
"According to another testimony, in July Alyssa was in the notorious Bilanovka detention camp in the Donbas region," says Bondarev. "At the end of July, this camp was shelled, and both sides – the Russians and the Ukrainians – blamed each other for the bombing. There may be a dispute about who is to blame, but there is no dispute about the fact that at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners were killed in the blast. Alisa was saved only due to the fact that the male prisoners' barracks were quite far away from the female prisoners' barracks".
In September, Irina received a call from another girl, who was released in the next prisoner exchange deal. She said that she was held together with Alisa in a detention center in the Russian Belgorod region, near the Ukrainian border. She said that warm clothes were taken from the captives and they were given prison uniforms. When Alisa was not released even in the next prisoner exchange deal in October, when 108 Ukrainian captives were set free, the Glazov family realized that something was just not right.
Dying in prison, covered in wounds
Bondarev finally found and brought Irina the sad reason for keeping Alisa in captivity. It is connected to the same television broadcast on the pro-Russian channel: as bizarre as it may sound, from the Ukrainian point of view, this unfortunate girl is considered a rebel, almost a traitor.
I believe that a chain of unfortunate mistakes and misunderstandings caused Alisa to miss the opportunity of being included in the prisoner exchange deal, when there was still a chance," claims Bondarev. "She was convinced that all her relatives – her mother, her brother, her grandmother and her future husband – were still in Mariupol, which was occupied by the Russians. She did not want to return to Ukraine at that time so that they would not be separated by the war. What she didn't know then was that none of them had remained there: her mother and brother had immigrated to Israel, her grandmother had passed away, and the boyfriend was killed when he stood on a mine near his home. She thought she had no one to return to in Ukraine, but it was exactly the opposite – she has no one to return to in Mariupol, which was occupied by the Russians!"
The entangled situation in which Alisa and other captives found themselves when they thought that they should be released to their families living in the area occupied by the Russians only got worse when their captors forced them to give up their Ukrainian citizenship on camera, and even vote in favor of annexing the occupied area to Russia.
"We can only try to guess how genuine and real such a decision must be if it is made by a young girl in captivity, who is completely dependent on the whim of her captors," laughs Bondarev. But the consequences of this decision are far from ridiculous. For some unknown reason, Alisa's name was removed from all the lists of Ukrainian captives planned for release, and she fell between the cracks of the belligerent parties – those who did not want to release her, and those who were not ready to release her and continued to hold her under terrible conditions.
Bondarev claims that at this stage, the family was approached by Ukrainians, who introduced themselves as having the authority or contacts in the pro-Russian government in the Donbas region and offered to act as intermediaries to release Alisa from captivity in return for ridiculous sums of money. They shared promises and stories about other captives, who were supposedly released from captivity for 100,000 dollars and more thrown around.
It turns out that, like in many other cases of human tragedy, the war in Ukraine has spawned a wave of criminals, who have no problem cheating, in order to gain profits from the terrible suffering that has washed over the country. In addition, there are also opposite examples, such as the rumor that Bondarev mentions about a Jew from Donetsk, who was successful, thanks to his connections, in getting Alisa out of the clutches of the Chechen unit, known for its brutality.
As far as the family knows, Alisa is currently being held in the women's wing of the Mariupol detention center, together with another twenty female prisoners. She was allowed to make one phone call to the "outside world," when she learned of the death of her grandmother and her fiancé. This news completely broke her, and she suffers from an outbreak of severe psoriasis.
"I sent her money, but they didn't give it to her, just as they don't permit her to receive medicines and ointments that might relieve her deteriorating medical condition," cries the mother. "What didn't I do? I called the International Red Cross hundreds of times. I begged them to at least take care of her medication, but I was always given the same answer. They claimed that they have no ability or authority to intervene. After we landed in Israel, I also contacted the Ukrainian embassy without delay and filled out forms about Alisa. I was repeatedly given the dry answer that the matter of her inclusion in or exclusion from the prisoner exchange lists is under the responsibility of the security services in Ukraine.
During these nightmarish months, I have kept in close contact with the parents of other prisoners, and believe it or not, they have all been released. Only my daughter is languishing in prison, her body covered in bleeding sores. We recently received a letter from her in indirect ways. She was full of despair and claimed that she regrets being alive. "All that's left of me is the shell of my body," she wrote, "and the Alisa that was, is gone."
Not ready to give up on her son either
In a plea to save her daughter, Irina contacted Presidents Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin, and Isaac Herzog. The president of Russia referred her to the pro-Russian head of the Donbas region. The President of Ukraine referred the broken mother to the state's security services, and as Irina claims, only the reply from the President of the State of Israel, never came. Yesterday, following Israel Hayom's request, a spokesperson for the President's House said that "the request from Mrs. Glazov was received close to the publication of the article. The staff of the President's House will contact her and try to do everything they can to help her and her daughter."
Irina and Anton's path in Israel has not been easy. They came here without any possessions, and all they had were the clothes they are wearing. Vita, Irina's cousin and a long-time Israeli, organized a fundraising campaign and collected donations for them, but as with all donations – the money ran out quickly.
To support herself and her teenage son, Irina works overtime at a cosmetics factory and perseveres at learning Hebrew at an evening ulpan. For this, she has to pay a heavy price: her 14-year-old son is left alone at home until late in the evening; dealing with the war traumas that he experienced.
Vita testifies that Anton does go to school, but he does not understand very much what is happening there. "The war left marks on him that will not disappear that easily, if at all," she says sadly. "He is a withdrawn and introverted adolescent, unable to talk about the horrors to which he was exposed. He requires urgent psychological therapy, but the family cannot afford this. Meanwhile, Anton does not want to see anyone and refuses to go on school trips.
Irina's mental condition is also getting worse by the day. She refused the offer for Anton to go to a good boarding school because she is afraid of being left alone. After one daughter was already taken from her in a cruel way, she cannot bear the thought that her son will also not be with her."
Vita recalls that Irina and her son arrived in Israel weak and physically, not just mentally, exhausted. In the last days of the battles in Mariupol, there was nothing to eat and the Glazov family suffered from hunger, just like all their friends in the same situation. Irina lost about 20 kg and Anton also became extremely thin. Morbid physical emaciation is easy to get rid of, but how does one get rid of the mental scars?
For now, Irina's salary is sufficient to cover the cost of rent and living expenses, but unlike other new immigrants – she is not really concerned with practical plans for building her future.
Instead, all she can think about is her daughter's fate: "If they don't join forces to save her, she will remain forever in the musty prison in Mariupol. I also contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but was told that they are not involved, because Alisa is not an Israeli citizen. I always knew that the Jewish state does not abandon Jews in trouble, and whoever saves one Jewish soul, it is as if he saved the entire world. The time has come to prove that this is not just a slogan."
Rabbi Cohen, who continues to support the family even after they immigrated to Israel, refuses to give up hope. He says that on the eve of Chanukah, one of the few Jews still in Mariupol went to the remains of the city's synagogue, and, surprisingly, he found an intact Menora lying there.
"Just imagine the vision: the synagogue building was destroyed; only the front wall was standing. The iron beams that supported the building melted in the fire – but the Menora survived as if to symbolize the hope for a miracle and to signal that things will be good in the end. The light will still shine in Mariupol and for the family of Irina and Alisa."
Following the events of the war, the Jewish community of Mariupol was scattered to many different places, and the Rabbi and his family were also forced to flee. They left their house and possessions there, and naturally, nothing remains. "There are only about one hundred Jews left in the city; those who cannot afford to leave," says Rabbi Cohen. "Some have just run out of savings, and without money, they don't dare to dream of a life in another, new and unfamiliar place. It is very expensive to be a refugee, and being displaced in the middle of a war involves heartbreaking stories.
One Jewish woman we took out of Mariupol begged us to go back to her home and find a certain object which was of immense value to her, but when we entered her burning house – the flames had already consumed all the contents.
"Others still believe that a lost family member will return – and they have hope that one day their lives will be restored, repaired. We recently completed another rescue mission with great success – we saved Mark Zotoloka, a wonderful Jewish man who was in captivity. His grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, asked, as her last wish, to see him again. We helped at least 1,000 people, Jews and non-Jews, to get out of the dangerous area, and we brought the Jews who expressed such wishes, to the Land of Israel."
Rabbi Cohen's team, family members, and volunteers are continuing their attempts to locate and rescue two more local Jews. It is known that Gleb Petryuk, an officer in the Ukrainian army, is in Russian captivity in Donetsk. His mother is refusing to immigrate to Israel without him and is awaiting his release.
The fate of Alexander (Sasha) Oleinnikov is even more unsettling. Sasha, who was Rabbi Cohen's right-hand man in the Jewish youth activities in Mariupol, was drafted into the Ukrainian army at the outbreak of the war. His mother spoke to him for the last time in March and since then all trace of him has been lost. "He is every Jewish mother's dream," the Rabbi describes him, and prays for another miracle for Sasha to be found safe and sound.
Despite his success in rescuing so many, Rabbi Cohen calls on all concerned and involved, as well as the entire Jewish People, not to be silent until the last captive and missing Jew in Ukraine returns. "Our mission is not complete. Every time I meet Alisa's mother, my heart breaks. This woman is as tense as a spring. There is no other way to describe her situation – she is totally lost. I have a feeling that we have left a sister and several brothers behind, and it is impossible to reconcile with this feeling."
