A war-torn family: Ukrainian medic endured captivity and rape while her sons ended up on opposite sides
A Ukrainian army medic from Donetsk region survived rape in Russian captivity and a terrorism trial before being released in a prisoner swap, while her three sons were scattered across the war — one fighting for Ukraine, one joining the Russian army, and the youngest left alone for years in occupied territory.
Liliia Prutian, 56, a widow and mother of three from the village of Blyzhnie in Ukraine's Donetsk region, left a low-paying job at a gas station in 2017 to work for the Ukrainian army, eventually becoming a military medic with the Aidar Battalion — a unit Russian propaganda has long portrayed as a symbol of "Ukrainian Nazism."
After Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022, Aidar was deployed near Mariupol. Just 16 days in, Russian forces surrounded Prutian and several fellow soldiers, and she was raped by a Russian soldier while in captivity. She was held first in Donetsk, then in Rostov, where a broken toilet forced prisoners to use leftover soup broth to flush it. She was later put on trial on terrorism charges, but before a verdict was reached, she was unexpectedly released in a prisoner exchange.
While she was in captivity, her family was torn apart by the occupation. Her youngest son, Dima, then 17, was left alone in occupied Blyzhnie. In the fall of 2022, his diabetes-related complications made him seriously ill; his middle brother drove him to the hospital but never visited, and Dima stayed there for months until a teacher signed him out. Around that time, the middle son — who did not share the family's pro-Ukrainian views — married a pro-Russian Ukrainian woman, sold his mother's car, cut off his brothers, and joined the Russian army. Prutian only learned of this during her own terrorism trial, when his written testimony against her was read aloud.
When Dima returned from the hospital, he found Russian soldiers occupying his house; they later left, taking a laptop, his mother's jewelry, and other belongings. He obtained a Russian passport, which he needed to continue his studies, pay utilities and receive aid.
After her release, Prutian underwent surgery at a rehabilitation center near Kyiv to restore hearing lost in combat, and worked to bring Dima out, fearing he would eventually be conscripted into the Russian army. She paid a taxi driver about $115 to smuggle him a temporary Ukrainian passport and hired another driver to get him out of occupied territory. The only viable route ran through Russia, then Belarus and Poland — roughly 1,740 miles in total — before he reached his mother in Kyiv in late February 2025.
Prutian and Dima now live in Dnipro. She continues to serve in the Ukrainian army in a desk role away from the front, while Dima has resumed his studies. Her oldest son, now discharged from military service, lives with them. She has heard her middle son was wounded in a drone attack but has not sought further details.
