From «Azovstal» Vadym happened to be in captivity

After graduating from the capital's college, in 2020, Vadym Smoliak, a native of the village of Shchasnivka of Bobrovytskyi community in Chernihiv region, was called up to serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. His mother Tetiana Borysivna still remembers her son's solemn send-off to the army, often looks at photos from that memorable evening, and is recently shedding bitter tears over them.

-After the first year of service, Vadim was given a vacation, - a happy ray flashed in her eyes when she remembered that meeting with her son. - During the year of service, he grew older, matured, filled with manly strength, became a real handsome man. After the vacation, I began to count the days to his demobilization - his army service was to end in late May. But this damn war erupted...The heartbroken mother had either already cried all her tears, or they become unbearably disgusting to her as they suddenly stopped appearing in her eyes, only the arm with a large handkerchief continued to wipe her already almost dry wasted cheeks. The mother, it was felt, squeezed her grief into a fist, and kept on telling how she learnt in March that her son had been sent to the Donbas within his military brigade. Since then, telephone communication has become rare, and on May 7, it completely stopped.Mrs. Tetiana and her daughter Yulia, a student of the capital's university, learned through their channels that their Vadyk was in Mariupol, then he himself confirmed it. And soon he got encircled in "Azovstal".Later, acquaintances of the Smoliaks, including the mother herself, allegedly recognized the wounded Vadym in a group of fighters leaving the encirclement.Relatives grieved and rejoiced that he was alive. And then he himself, in an unknown way, sent word to his father that he was indeed alive, but in the column that the occupiers often showed, - it was not him the relatives and acquaintances recognized.The mother was quite worried when she did not see her son's name in the list of prisoners that was circulated on social networks. But thanks to Vadym's former commander, when he had still been serving in Zakarpattia region, communication between the parents of prisoners from  "Azovstal" was organized in the social network. They informed their parents, and they also sent word to the Smoliaks that they saw Vadym in the "Molodizhnyi" concentration camp near Volnovakha when they are taken out for a walk, but he was in another barrack. Later, mother Tania and sister Yulia also read the news from Vadym, even with the hope that they could be swapped with Russian prisoners, many of whom were also captured. So the relatives of the captured fighter now live with this hope....Before the war, Tetiana Smoliak worked in Brovary as an inspector at a large warehouse. Now she has no possibility to get there to work. But she can't sit at home without work, without a salary, either. So she got a job at the agricultural association "Zemlya I Volya". Now she works mostly in a garden team, where vegetables are grown for internal needs, primarily for four stationary and twelve mobile canteens. She is picked up to work from home, taken there and back with a farm bus. I have a salary, and it is easier to bear grief among people. By Hryhorii Zahreblia, journalistVadym Smoliak in photo