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|April 19, 2022 – Anna-Sofia Puzanova, the 18-year-old daughter of Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, a paramedic from Team Ukraine who was captured by Russian Soldiers on March 16, 2022, asks them to bring her mother back.
Her mother Yuliia Paievska, known as Taira, has been missing for four weeks.
Anna-Sofia is competing at the Invictus Games in The Hague in her mother’s place.
April 28, 2022 – Yuliia Paievska, better known as Taira, is a civilian paramedic, the founder and leader of “Taira’s Angels”, a volunteer medical evacuation unit. She is a member of Team Ukraine at the Invictus Games.
Taira is a front line ‘medical angel.’ She has always worked in the most critical flashpoints, taking Ukrainian wounded warriors out of fire.
Taira has rescued more than 500 lives of Ukrainian military personnel, since the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2014. Now it’s her own life that needs to be saved.
On March 16, 2022, Taira was captured in Mariupol. There is currently lack of progress in the negotiations on putting her on the list of prisoners to be exchanged.
Russian media are using Taira in their disinformation narratives and propaganda campaigns. They publish videos showing signs of psychological and physical pressure used against her. This fact provides grounds for believing that there is a threat to Taira’s life.
Having no international community to exert pressure on Russia, it will not be possible to get matters of Yuliia ‘Taira’ Paievska’s return off the ground.
May 10, 2022 – Russia must free Yulia Payevska and hundreds of other women captured in the war in Ukraine, her daughter Anna Sofia Puzanova said at the European Parliament.
Awarded People’s Hero of Ukraine, Payevska had saved hundreds of lives and trained more than 1000 paramedics before she was captured in a humanitarian corridor near the embattled port of Mariupol.
Rasa Juknevičienė, Vice-Chairwoman of the EPP Group in charge of Foreign Affairs, said the capture and deportation of a half million Ukrainians is similar to the Soviet actions in her native Lithuania.
Frances Fitzgerald, a member of Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights, also calls for real humanitarian corridors, an end to the war and to gather evidence on war crimes.
May 19, 2022 – Visual testimony of Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, Ukrainian combat medic, inside the besieged city of Mariupol, February 27, 2022. A brother and sister, injured in a shooting at a checkpoint, arrive at the aid station.
“Where does it hurt, Sunshine?” she asks the girl, while others try to resuscitate her brother . . . in vain. The parents are already dead.
Footage filmed by captured volunteer medic, Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, has shown the horrors taking place in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol after it was smuggled out in a tampon.
Using a body-worn camera, 53-year-old Yuliia Paievska recorded 256 gigabytes of video, documenting her team’s frantic efforts over two weeks to save people from the brink of death.
May 19, 2022 – When the Russian Ukrainian war broke out on February 24, 2022, Ukrainian medic Yuliia “Taira” Paievska attached a GoPro camera onto her helmet to show the world what was happening in Mariupol.
An Associated Press team got her bodycam footage safely out just before she was abducted by Russian forces on May 19, 2022. Taira has not been seen since.
May 20, 2022 – A Ukrainian war medic has recorded her time in Mariupol as the city was being taken over by Russian forces.
Yuliia Paievska, known as Taira, managed to smuggle the footage to journalists that shows everything from soldiers being captured to civilians being treated from near death.
Yuliia’s whereabouts are currently unknown but it is believed she is a prisoner and being held in an unknown location by Russian forces.
May 20, 2022 – A Ukrainian medic filmed the horrors of Mariupol on a Go-Pro camera. Medic Yuliia Paievska treated children, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers during the early days of conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Paievska managed to get the footage to journalists evacuating Mariupol one day before she was captured by Russian forces. She has not been seen or heard from since. Imtiaz Tyab reports.
May 22, 2022 – Footage captured by the bodycam of Ukrainian medic Yuliia Paievska, also known as Taira, reveals the horrors of Mariupol.
Now held captive by Russian forces, Paievska managed to smuggle out her data card in a tampon.
June 17, 2022 – A celebrated Ukrainian medic, Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, whose footage was smuggled out of the besieged city of Mariupol by an Associated Press team was freed by Russian forces.
Yuliia Paievska is better known as Taira, and her release comes three months after she was taken captive.
July 6, 2022 – In her first interview since her release, a Ukrainian paramedic tells CNN’s Alex Marquardt about her three months in Russian captivity.
July 11, 2022 – A celebrated Ukrainian medic, Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, who was held captive by Russian forces for three months says she thinks about the prisoners she left behind.
Yuliia Paievska, who is better known as Taira, says the footage she captured to document the war helped play a role in her release.
September 15, 2022 – The Senate Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe Committee holds a hearing to examine Taira Paievska on Russia’s war in Ukraine. Warning: Livestream may contain graphic and disturbing content.
September 15, 2022 – Taira Paievska on Russia’s War in Ukraine. US Senate Committee Hearings
My “Hell” in Russian Captivity
September 15, 2022 – Washington, DC
1. Various of Yuliia “Taira” Paievska greeting people inside the halls of Congress
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, Ukrainian medic: “It’s a very peaceful and quiet place. It’s a big difference with I saw before in Mariupol.”
3. Close of sign for hearing reading (English) “My hell in Russian Captivity”
4. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, Ukrainian medic: “I think this is extremely important as a step towards sooner ending the war because evil must be punished and the perpetrator cannot go on unpunished.”
5. Mid of Taira with an interpreter inside the hearing room
6. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, Ukrainian medic: “So, this was actually an incidental happening. I saw that there was an opportunity to do that and I decided that I should do this because I could see that with the developments going on, I would be either killed or imprisoned. And I wanted the world to see all those pictures and all those stories.”
7. Mid of Taira with an interpreter in the hallway
8. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, Ukrainian medic: “And then of course my release. It was also a miracle, something I never expected to happen. And because it happened, I think it’s a good sign showing that others can be released and the world is on our side. The world is supporting us.”
9. Mid of Taira meeting with Senator Ben Cardin inside the hearing room
10. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, Ukrainian medic: “Well, thank you for your words. And I can tell you I am not going to stop. I will keep fighting where I can and how much I can.”
11. Various of Taira with an interpreter sitting at a table, reviewing notes
STORYLINE: A Ukrainian volunteer medic captured by Russian forces during their deadly siege of the port city of Mariupol has told U.S. lawmakers how Russians routinely tortured her and other prisoners, killing many.
Yuliia Paievska, detained in Mariupol in March and held by Russian and pro-Russian forces for three months, spoke to lawmakers with the Helsinki Commission, a government agency created in part to promote compliance with human rights internationally.
Known to Ukrainians by the nickname Taira, Paievska became a popular figure in her home country. Her care of the wounded during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war received global attention after her bodycam footage was provided to The Associated Press.
Members of Congress have proposed a bill to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism for it’s continued war in Ukraine.
“I think this is extremely important as a step towards sooner ending the war because evil must be punished and the perpetrator cannot go on unpunished,” Paievska told the Associated Press before testifying to Senators.
Paievska told of fellow Ukrainian prisoners screaming in pain for weeks from the torture before dying.
She said a 7-year-old boy died in her lap because she had none of the medical gear needed to treat him.
Paievska had been one of thousands of Ukrainians believed to have been taken prisoner by Russian forces. Mariupol’s mayor said that 10,000 people from his city alone disappeared during what was the monthslong Russian siege of that city.
Mariupol fell to Russians in April, with the city all but destroyed by Russian bombardment, and with countless dead.
The journalists fled the city on March 15 with the card embedded inside a tampon, carrying it through 15 Russian checkpoints. The next day, Paievska was taken by pro-Russia forces.
November 24, 2022 – Ukrainian woman who was tortured and held prisoner for three months has spoken to Sky News of her ordeal at the hands of Russian forces.
Yulia Paievska had been a volunteer at a hospital in Mariupol, where she filmed their work using a body camera, and gave the footage to an international news agency.