"I couldn't believe that ours were in the city.

Although I waited and believed all the time, teacher Olena Naumova does not hold back tears.

- This was probably my second birth.

Not only mine - all our friends, all people of Kherson.

It was such happiness!

On the streets, in the squares.

We could not tear ourselves away from those guys, our soldiers.

We hugged them, we kissed them." 

Olena Naumova is an ordinary kindergarten teacher in Kherson.

But she became a fearless fighter for Ukraine.

She survived the hell of Russian captivity.

From the first days of the occupation, Olena started an information war in social networks.

Risking her life every day, the woman drove the enemy to madness: "They followed me, they listened to my broadcasts.

She sat in the occupied city and three times a day shouted: "Glory to the ZSU!"

There were many of us.

This resistance of the Kherson people - he simply got them.

And they decided to punish one of us so that the others would not suffer." 

In memory of the horrors of captivity, Olena kept the plastic bag that the occupiers put on her during the abduction.

"Yes, they took it and put it on their head.

When I was sitting at the interrogations, one of them would come in and shout: "Ah, there you are, a star!".

I think that now they will be taped on the head, because nothing was visible.

This is such a humiliation, this is an attempt to make a person speechless.

You can't ask something yourself.

Immediately: "No!

Be silent!". 

The former guard is sure that the Russians put bags on the heads of civilians due to panic fear of being recognized. 

"They are afraid!

They are afraid of us, Ukrainians, they are afraid that they will find everyone.

And they will definitely find everyone!"

"According to established international acts, civilians cannot be held captive, this only applies to military personnel," emphasizes Andrii Nebytov, head of the National Police in the Kyiv region.

- Moreover, they not only take civilians captive - they then release them in exchange for their servicemen.

Civilians are actually hostages.

This is a crime that involves a violation of the laws and customs of war.

Responsibility for this necessarily arises". 

"They almost didn't feed me," says former guard Olena Naumova.

- The cookies I took with me were 200 grams. The first two days I ate three cookies in the morning and in the evening.

They said that "we don't kill women your age."

But all the same, I got punched in the face, and wires were connected to me." 

But torture with thirst turned out to be more terrible than hunger, beatings and electric current. 

"I was most afraid in the basement that I would run out of water," says Olena.

- if you can get used to hunger, how many days can a person live without water?

The instinct of self-preservation worked.

The brain dictated: you need water." 

"All those who are in captivity are hostages of completely sick people," says Maksym Zhorin, ex-commander of the "Azov" regiment.

- They do not provide the necessary medical care, nor the necessary amount of food and water, nor contact with relatives.

All this simply does not exist." 

Having gone through all the circles of hell, today Elena shares her own rules that helped her survive in captivity.

The first rule is to demonstrate natural behavior: "If I portray myself as Joan of Arc, I will be killed painfully and for a long time.

You are afraid - say that you are afraid.

You want to cry - cry.

It will be natural and they can believe.

And that's why I played my role like that: I said, I'll tell you everything.

And she herself gave them misinformation, gave contacts of people who, for example, left a long time ago." 

The second rule of survival in captivity is not to lose heart.

Otherwise, you can go crazy.

"I did exercises, I walked, I mentally sang, read poems," says Olena Naumova.

- In order not to lose your mind, you must occupy your brain with something.

Remembering pleasant moments in life.

To think about how beautiful our country will be when we free it from the occupiers." 

But the main rule of survival in captivity is mutual help and support of other prisoners.

"It is necessary to think not only about yourself. Young people were abused a lot, they were beaten all the time, tortured with electric current," says Olena.

- Between the chambers there were such large holes through which the pipes passed.

I knelt down, peeked at the prisoner next door, because he himself was strapped in, and said: "Valerchik, how are you?".

He says: "Aunt, everything is fine."

In general, if it weren't for Valerka, I would have frozen there.

I was in one T-shirt and one summer skirt.

He had a travel mat.

He tore it in half with his handcuffed hands and pushed it into this hole for me." 

"People who were kidnapped and locked up in one cell, they were all forced to shout "glory to Russia, glory to Putin."

If there were 20 people in the cell, and one of them did not sing or express his pro-Ukrainian position, everyone was beaten," emphasizes Andriy Nebytov.

"But we understand that everyone's health is different.

Someone can withstand torture, and someone has a weak heart.

You need to take care of yourself and your surroundings, think about the fact that a person will be freed from captivity anyway." 

Among people who were brought up in the USSR, there is a myth that captive soldiers should behave like heroes.

Israeli special forces officer Denys Desyatnik shares his own experience of how to learn to survive in the captivity of IDF fighters: "First of all, don't panic, keep yourself in your hands in any situation.

In Israel, there are a small number of special units that train their employees so that under any torture, even in the case of amputation of limbs, a person does not hand over important information." 

But such heroism applies only to certain units of the special services.

For ordinary IDF soldiers, the main task in captivity is to save their lives. 

"A military man who simply fights on the front line, he defends his country, protects his home, but he does not have any global information," says Denys Desyatnik.

"That's why he is even recommended to tell everything he knows in case of capture and not to subject himself to torture." 

This experience of the best armies in the world is also implemented in the modern Ukrainian army.

"In case a person is captured, there is a protocol in his unit," confirms the ex-commander of the "Azov" regiment Maksym Zhorin.

- They immediately change the radio station, they change callsigns, they change positions.

In order to save other people's lives, not to put them at risk.

Therefore, there is no point in keeping information and suffering for it.

You have to save your life and health in order to come back and continue your fight."