Сombat medic released from Russian captivity gets engaged to comrade-in-arms – video

Halyna Fedyshyn, a Marine Brigade combat medic who was released from Russian captivity in the war's biggest prisoner exchange on 3 January, has got engaged to her comrade-in-arms, Mykola Hrytseniak.

Source: Serhii Volynskyi (aka Volyna), the commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade, on social media

Volyna said the couple had been through the battles for Mariupol together and withstood the test of captivity and a long separation.

"This love has survived trials that can break the strongest of people. A pair of Ukrainian marines have shown that true feelings know no obstacles, even in hell on Earth," the commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade wrote.

Volyna added that Halyna Fedyshun was the last female marine in Russian captivity. 

According to Army.Inform, Halyna is from Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. She comes from a large family: her parents raised five sons and four daughters. Halyna signed a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine back in 2016. Before that, she had worked as a nurse in a civilian hospital for a year.

In October 2016, Halyna was stationed in Luhansk Oblast as a member of the medical and nursing team at the Vinnytsia mobile hospital, where she helped to evacuate injured soldiers to a medical facility and provided them with first aid.

Halyna subsequently joined the 36th Separate Marine Brigade named after Rear-Admiral Mykhailo Bilynskyi, where she continued to save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers as a combat medic. 

Halyna met her true love, marine Mykola Hrytseniak, in the trenches on the contact line in Donetsk Oblast. The lovers were in Donetsk Oblast when the full-scale Russian invasion began. 

Under the Russian onslaught, their unit withdrew from positions near Mariupol to the Illich Steel and Iron Works territory, then to Azovstal. Halyna was wounded in the fierce fighting.

In May 2022 she, along with Mykola and other brothers-in-arms, left Azovstal as a prisoner of war. Behind Russian bars, the couple had no opportunity to see each other. Mykola was released from captivity a few months ago, and it was only then that he learned that Halyna was alive.

Mykola proposed to Halyna at their first meeting after 20 months apart.

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