Escaping the besieged city by foot: The untold story of a marine’s escape from Mariupol

The defence of Mariupol was the most difficult and tragic episode in this war. It is also one that remains shrouded in silence.

Although the entire world followed Ukrainian resistance almost live on air, it is still difficult to piece together a coherent narrative of the defence of Mariupol and its industrial plants, which became a "place of life and death" for hundreds of Ukrainian troops.

Silence particularly surrounds the lives and experiences of people outside of the Azov Regiment, which has – understandably and tragically – become associated with the defence of Mariupol.

By the end of the first month of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Illich iron and steel works, just next to the Azovstal plant, were being defended by the Rear Admiral Mykhailo Bilynskyi 36th Separate Marine Brigade.

While talking to the brigade in southern Ukraine, Ukrainska Pravda made an accidental discovery. In addition to the two groups of marines that have received extensive news coverage – one group joined the Azov Regiment at the Azovstal plant and the other surrendered to the Russian forces –  there was another, third, group.

A small number of marines from the 36th Brigade escaped besieged Mariupol in April by foot following the heavy battles that were waged for the city.

The then-commander of a marine battalion known as Aristid was among them. He served under the now legendary Serhii "Volyna", who later led the group of marines who decided to join the Azov Regiment at Azovstal. Volyna has become one of the faces of Ukrainian resistance.

The story of the 36th Brigade and its role in the defence of Mariupol is another piece of the tragic – and at the same time heroic – mosaic of the Ukrainian defence in the war against Russia.

The 36th Brigade comprised the battalion under Aristid’s command and two other separate battalions: the 1st Separate Battalion and the 501st Separate Battalion.

When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Aristid’s battalion held the line outside Mariupol. Later on, the battalion retreated nearer to the city, and eventually occupied positions at the Illich works. At the beginning of April, the battalion split: some marines left the besieged plant to join the Azov Regiment and others decided to escape Mariupol.

Below is the history of Mariupol’s defence as seen by the marine whose call sign – Aristid – recalls Aristides, an Athenian statesman and military commander.

Aristid was 17 and a student at the Kharkiv Higher Tank Command School [now the Department of Military Education at Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute - ed.] when he joined the Ukrainian army in 1998. He wanted to become a pilot, but this was impossible as he did not have the money or connections. So he trained to become a tank operator instead.

Aristid believes that everything he saw in the Ukrainian army between 1998 and 2014 was indicative of Russia’s deliberate attempts to destroy and disarm the Ukrainian forces [from the inside]. He recalls that at the time the Ukrainians themselves failed to realise that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were the guarantor of Ukraine’s independence.

Aristid served in the 36th Coastal Security Brigade in Crimea until 2014; the brigade later became the Rear Admiral Mykhailo Bilynskyi 36th Marine Brigade, which joined the defence of Mariupol in 2022.

At the time of Russia’s occupation of Crimea, Aristid was assistant commander of the operations unit and was stationed in Perevalne, a village between Simferopol and Alushta, the brigade’s permanent deployment point.

He recalls that during the early days of the Russian invasion of Crimea, everyone around him was eager to fight against Russia. Later on, however, propagandists masquerading as the Navy’s press service worked on the marines, promising things such as "pay, luxury foodstuffs and houses in Yalta" 

Instead of issuing orders, the Ukrainian leadership only told its troops to "hold on". Aristid was one of the very few who did.

After the withdrawal from Crimea and the creation of the new brigade in Mykolaiv, he was deployed as part of the Joint Forces Operation in the Anti-terrorist Operation Zone [in eastern Ukraine - ed.]. He would spend seven to ten months every year on the Mariupol front, where most marines were deployed.

The beginning of the great war

At the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, the majority of marines from the 36th Brigade were already deployed in the vicinity of Mariupol.

Aristid’s battalion was holding the line nine kilometres away from the village of Pikuzy [previously Kominternove - ed.], 40 kilometres to the east of Mariupol.

From early in the morning of 24 February, he and the other marines in his battalion were attacked with Russian Grad rockets.

When the battalion was first deployed in the area in December 2021, it immediately received an order: hold the defence in the event of an attack. Their only option was to fight.

The heaviest equipment at the battalion’s disposal was a 120mm mortar; they used it to strike the Russian troops, tanks and armoured infantry vehicles leading the attack.

The Russians began to ramp up their attack on the Mariupol front on 17 February. By that point, the world media had already started reporting on the Russian invasion. From then on, Aristid would sleep no more than two or three hours each day, fully clothed.

For the previous few years he had known that a full-scale Russian invasion was only a matter of time. He had set aside savings in case of war and taught his wife to drive. In 2014, she and their two children had to evacuate from Crimea by train.

On the first night of the great war, all the units deployed on the same front as Aristid held the line.

Then, on the night of 26-27 February, the Russian occupying forces breached the defence to the left of his battalion, in the area covered by the 53rd Brigade, and began to approach Mariupol from the north, near Volnovakha.

At the same time, the 1st Separate Marine Battalion had completely retreated from its positions. Its retreat exposed the flank of the Ukrainian forces near Hnutove, some 20 kilometres to the northeast of Mariupol.

"I deployed my battalion’s reserve to cover that flank. Though it was hardly a reserve: it was one armoured vehicle, an eight-strong reconnaissance group, the chief sergeant, and myself," Aristid recalls.

A company from the 1st Separate Battalion was also deployed at Hnutove on the orders of Volodymyr Baraniuk, Commander of the 36th Brigade.

Even so, the Russian occupying forces soon broke through this flank again. The 36th Brigade lost two of its tanks in the hostilities.

Aristid and some of the other marines retreated even closer to Mariupol, to the defence positions built up in the previous several years of war with Russia.

However, the Ukrainian forces were not able to hold those positions for long; the Russians were moving too fast. On 27 February, the 36th Brigade received an order to hold the line on the outskirts of Mariupol, in the village of Volonterivka.

The Russian forces hardly noticed the marines entering Volonterivka, but Aristid’s battalion sustained its first loss when one serviceman was killed during an airstrike. His body was never found.

The situation was equally difficult on other parts of the front in the vicinity of Mariupol. In the last days of February, Aristid realised that the defenders of Mariupol were, in effect, encircled.

Volonterivka, Mariupol’s outskirts

Unit commanders set up barricades on the outskirts of Volonterivka, and some defences had already been put in place by the Azov Regiment. The Russian occupiers were already heavily shelling Mariupol, but the city was yet to see the most dramatic destruction.

On 1 March, the Russians continued to fire at Hnutove, as they had not yet realised that the marines had retreated. This gave Aristid’s battalion time to prepare for battle.

On 3 March, a reinforced Russian platoon – including three tanks and four armoured infantry vehicles – launched a breakthrough operation on Volonterivka.

"It was a bold attempt to break through our battle lines. But our RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) struck their three tanks," Aristid recalls.

It was the 2nd company of Aristid’s battalion that fought the Russians.

After the occupiers were repelled on the approach to Volonterivka, they spent the next several days shelling the outskirts of Mariupol with artillery and conducting airstrikes in the area. There were no direct clashes between the Russian and Ukrainian infantry. Only once did battalions of the 36th Brigade have to dislodge the Russian occupying forces from the site of the Pryazovska correctional facility on the outskirts of Volonterivka.

The Russians resumed their offensive on 7 March.

From then until approximately 20 March, battles were waged on the outskirts of Mariupol around the clock: the Russian occupying forces would enter an area, they would be repelled, and so on, and on, and on. Aristid’s battalion’s amphibious assault company recovered its positions at least six times. The Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered losses, and Aristid believes these were highest among the marines.

"To be honest, it was tough… I went to the airborne assault company and told them: ‘If we allow the Russians to enter the city, it will be very difficult to prevent their further advance. Here we can at least observe them approaching the outskirts.

It was obvious that Viktor Piatkin, the company commander, was losing heart… I called him up and said: ‘Friend, let me report you wounded and you can hand over to a platoon commander.’ He refused, saying: ‘There’s no need for that.’ Later he did spend a day handing his command over, though the platoon commander was also in low spirits… They realised that we were all surrounded," Aristid says.

Viktor Piatkin, the commander of the airborne assault company, was killed the day after this conversation took place.

Aristid arrived at the command and observation post of Piatkin’s company to boost morale and lead the battle. Around the same time, almost the whole 2nd company of Aristid’s battalion was surrounded by Russian troops when a unit withdrew from its position.

The company managed to escape the encirclement and retreated two kilometres into the city of Mariupol. Other units in the area had to retreat too. The Ukrainian troops had not prepared positions in the city, and digging trenches through asphalt, without good basements, was extremely difficult.

To make matters worse, the Russian artillery continued to relentlessly shell Mariupol’s buildings, day and night.

Following the retreat to Mariupol, Aristid’s new command and observation point was located in a maternity hospital on Metalirhiina Street (not the one that was subsequently bombed by Russian forces while still in use). Later, his battalion moved to the Illich works.

Slightly further away, across the River Kalmius, the Azov Regiment was holding the line at another of Mariupol’s large industrial plants, the Azovstal steel works.

The Illich iron and steel works

Towards the end of the first month of the war, around 27 or 28 March, Aristid’s battalion entered the Illich works.

There was no way to maintain a wide front.

The 501st Separate Battalion was also stationed at the Illich works. When communication with the battalion’s command post was lost one morning in late March, the commander of the 36th Brigade sent Aristid to find out what had happened to them.

"I arrived at the control and observation post of the 501st Battalion, but there was no one there. Their weapons were there, as were a rocket launcher and anti-tank weapons. There was lots of food – which, by the way, we’d already run out of. I reported back to my commander that there was no one there.

Later we found out that the battalion’s commander [Lieutenant Colonel Mykola Biriukov - ed.] had decided to surrender, but hadn’t informed anyone about his decision," Aristid says.

On the evening of 4 April, Kremlin-aligned media started to broadcast a video in which dozens of Ukrainian troops surrendered with their hands held up. The surrender was confirmed on 13 April.

Mariupol thus lost almost 300 defenders, forcing the marines to take up the all-round defence of the Illich plant.

"Everyone joined the defence effort: anti-aircraft missile units, mortar operators, rear units – everyone who was there, except for the wounded. Of course, sooner or later everything would be over, that much was clear… But I knew that fighting on the outskirts of Kyiv was still underway and that if Kyiv fell, so would Mariupol," Aristid recalls.

Kyiv Oblast was liberated in late March, but Mariupol’s defence was not over yet. Fighting continued night and day.

By early April, the Ukrainian troops had hardly any ammunition left and were running low on anti-tank weapons too. All they had were guns and grenades, which they would use when the Russian troops came extremely close.

"One of my marines, Sasha Kryvolap, had a torn cheek, his third wound. I told him: ‘Friend, take a few days of rest so your wound can heal a bit, you can’t even eat anything like this.’ But he said: ‘No, I’d rather grab a gun and join my comrades.’ I was on the verge of tears… These guys are made of steel," Aristid recalls.

Sasha Kryvolap has now been reported missing.

The leaders of the 36th Brigade had drawn up several plans for pulling out of Mariupol. Brigade Commander Volodymyr Baraniuk and Aristid both wanted to join the Azov Regiment and escape together with them, but the regiment flatly refused to leave the city.

At the time, the two plants – the Illich steel works and the Azovstal plant – were still connected by what the troops were calling the "route of life", which was used to evacuate the wounded from the Illich plant to Azovstal. While it was still possible, they were airlifted from there by Ukrainian helicopters.

Aristid recalls the heated discussions about who ought to be given a space on those helicopters. One discussion lasted for three and a half hours.

"There were 12 places and I was begging to be given at least 10 of them, and then I got to the hospital and the boys were in such terrible shape… And I was told: ‘You’ve got to realise, the doctors will also have to decide who to take on based on the severity of their wounds,’" he says.

First attempt to escape Mariupol and break through to Azovstal

On 10 April – the 46th day of the war – Volodymyr Baraniuk, Commander of the 36th Brigade, made a decision to escape the besieged Mariupol. Food was scarce and morale among the troops was low.

"Kyiv [Oblast] had been liberated and the enemy forces had begun to withdraw to the east. Fighting was taking place around the clock," Aristid recalls.

"I don’t know if the brigade commander was ordered to withdraw; it’s possible he decided for himself. So I was ordered to withdraw from the Illich plant," he adds.

The marines were supposed to move 30 kilometres to the north of Mariupol, towards the Russian-occupied city of Volnovakha, and then turn towards Zaporizhzhia as soon as they reached Kremenivka.

The first group of marines attempted to escape on Kozak armoured personnel carriers, but were shelled before they had even left the district where they were deployed. Soon after, all communication with Brigade Commander Baraniuk, his deputy and his chief of staff – who were all in the same armoured personnel carrier – was lost.

It later transpired that Commander Baraniuk and some of his marines were taken prisoner by the Russian forces. A month later, Baraniuk and his chief of staff, Dmytro Kormiankov, appeared in a video shared by RIA Novosti, a Kremlin-aligned Russian news outlet.

Major Yevhenii Bova, Commander of the 1st Separate Battalion, assumed the role of brigade commander. He also issued an order to withdraw from Mariupol.

Aristid ordered those of his marines who were still strong enough to walk to escape by foot and those who were too weak to walk to travel in vehicles. He planned to take wounded personnel to Azovstal.

At first, the majority of the battalion supported the withdrawal from Mariupol, saying it was better to be killed on their way out than "to die at this cursed plant".

However, this plan was upset by the idea of "extraction" – an evacuation with the assistance of third parties, like the one that took place in Dunkirk in 1940 during the largest ever military rescue operation. Ukrainian troops in Mariupol genuinely believed that such an operation might be undertaken to help them escape the besieged city.

"Volynskyi was in contact with Arakhamia, who kept saying that extraction was being discussed. I was sceptical, but the guys jumped on the idea and put quite a bit of hope in it," Aristid recalls.

As a poll of officers and the rank and file indicated, some marines in the battalion still wanted to join the Azov Regiment at the Azovstal plant. As a result, the battalion split roughly in half.

On 12 April, 186 service members – the majority of them marines, some of them wounded – withdrew from the Illich works and attempted to break through to Azovstal. By that point, the "route of life" that used to connect the two plants had been cut off.

The operation was a success and the marines joined the Azov Regiment in defending Azovstal.

The defence of Mariupol had narrowed down to that one plant.

The remaining marines, who had decided not to join the Azov Regiment, began to escape Mariupol in small groups of four to six people. The last battle at the Illich works was fought on 11 April at the third entry checkpoint.

Escaping Mariupol

Aristid was among those who insisted that Ukrainian troops had to leave Mariupol.

He left the Illich plant as part of a group that also included his deputy chief of staff, deputy battalion commander, and a communications officer at five o’clock in the morning on 12 April.

Their plan was to reach the enemy’s vanguard, hide, and wait for an opportune moment to manoeuvre through the enemy positions under the cover of the night.

Once they reached the Russian positions, Aristid and his group hid in an enormous ventilation pipe and started waiting for a window of opportunity to escape.

Such a window appeared on the following day, but the four marines decided to wait a little longer: it was still snowing outside, and they only had one sleeping bag and two mats with them.

They ended up spending a week in the pipe, constantly listening to the sounds of Russian footsteps and shooting.

"We were black as devils," Aristid recalls.

They made their next attempt to escape on 19 April. They managed to stay close to sources of water by taking a circuitous route via Volonterivka and Chermalyk.

"We had almost no water left – we drank from reservoirs and natural bodies of water. We ate the remains of the Russians’ dry rations which we’d find at their earlier positions," Aristid recalls.

The marines travelled at night and rested during the day. They carried their ammunition and other essentials on their shoulders, in bags that weighed 25 to 30 kilograms. They decided not to surrender without first putting up a fight.

Every now and then, Aristid would turn on his phone, study an offline map and memorise the route. He also maintained communication with his command. Sometimes his wife would also pass on instructions. They kept all the other phones switched off for security reasons.

In one place, local residents welcomed and fed the marines; they spent two days there. In another, they had to risk their lives by spending a night very close to the Russian forces.

The group was aiming to reach the then front line of Ukrainian positions near the village of Zolota Nyva, where they arrived on the night of 3-4 May. They had walked for two weeks.

The marines were met near Zolota Nyva by Ukrainian scouts, who gave them food and let them rest.

"That entire time, I dreamt only of hugging my wife and children at least once more. And of getting a couple of guys out," Aristid says.

He was given 10 days’ leave after escaping from Mariupol, a real luxury for Ukrainian service members since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

Only seven members of Aristid’s battalion managed to escape Mariupol by foot in small groups. At least 76 members of the 36th Marines Brigade got out. Not all of them reached their destination: some died while crossing the river, others during fighting.

Those who survived are continuing to defend Ukraine.

The war is not over yet.

Olha Kyrylenko, Ukrainska Pravda