”Azov” fighter Andriy Mishchenko broke into Mariupol by helicopter in March and died there. His loved ones returned the body, went through bureaucratic hell, and are seeking the Hero title for him — hereʼs their story

At the end of March, a 22-year-old intelligence officer from Azov, Andriy Mishchenko, flew to unblock Mariupol, which was already surrounded by Russian troops. A helicopter delivered food, medicines and weapons to the city, Andrii stayed in Mariupol to "perform combat missions" and died two weeks later. His body could have remained in the occupied territory if not for his ex-girlfriend Sasha. Thanks to ingenuity and friends, she managed to exchange Andriiʼs body. Now she supports Andriyʼs mother, who has been collecting documents about her sonʼs death for several months and wants him to be posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. "Babel" journalist Oksana Rasulova tells the story of Sasha and Andriy and explains how the relatives of fallen soldiers can overcome the bureaucracy.

1.

― I am very boring, there is nothing to tell about me, ― this is how 29-year-old Sasha begins her story about herself.

Sasha spent her whole life in Mariupol. She graduated from the construction technical school when the Euromaidan began in 2013, and joined the yet-to-be-reformed police force. She worked in the "Gryphon" special battalion of judicial police, where she guarded courts and judges, so she traveled a lot around Donetsk region. In 2020, on one of these trips, through a dating app, she met Andriy Mishchenko from Azov, who was then serving near Volnovakha.

"He called me right away," says Sasha. — Such a nice guy, two meters tall, blue eyes, brunette — everything I like. We started calling every day.

Sasha and Andrii started dating, he got to know her family. However, after 8 months, they broke up. Sasha says that they parted peacefully, so they continued to communicate, although she did not know that Andriy got married and had a child.

When the full-scale invasion began, Sasha was in Mariupol — serving in the National Guard, where she transferred in 2020. She says that her unit sent all the girls home, and the ammunition — automatic weapons, body armor, and helmets — was taken away. On February 28, Zampolit offered Sasha to go to "Azovstal" to prepare food and help. The girl agreed, she and other volunteers were supposed to be picked up on March 2 and brought to the factory, but this never happened.

"It wasnʼt terrible," says Sasha. — I had the feeling that I was abandoned.

Sasha stayed in Mariupol. She lived with a friend, then, when "Hail" hit the house, the girls went to the school across the street, where they stayed for ten days.

"The children are screaming, it stinks of people, socks, sausage," recalls Sasha. — I ask who is the boss. In fact, no one. Therefore, I immediately started organizing the processes there.

Sasha asked the military to bring food to the school, transported humanitarian aid to other warehouses, wrote down everything that happened in a diary. On the eve of leaving the storage, I burned all the records. She decided to go when, for the first time, no one from the military brought food to school. On March 16, Sasha and a friend left Mariupol for occupied Berdyansk, and from there to Zaporizhzhia. In Berdyansk, she saw a message from Andriy: "I know that Mariupol is fucked up." I hope you are alive, write or call when you leave."

2.

Andriy was in Kyiv, in Azov. He called Sasha on March 20 and said that he was flying to unblock Mariupol.

- I laughed, they say, you can teleport there, — says the girl. — And he said: "On helicopters."

Andriy flew to Mariupol as a helicopter commander, with 15 people under his command. Part of the group flew in another helicopter. They all managed to reach Mariupol on March 25 — it was the first such operation. The helicopters flew further, because they were supposed to unblock the city, but after a few flights the Russians started to shoot them down.

― They [helicopters] brought medicine, soldiers, weapons, and took away the wounded. Then I found out that some of my colleagues were taken out like that. They are alive thanks to people like Andrii, says Sasha.

Andriy stayed in the city after his first flight on March 25. He called Sasha and told that he was performing combat missions in Mariupol. I sent photos and called every time I was near Starlink. Only Sasha knew about the entire blockade operation and Andriiʼs participation in it.

They talked until April 14. According to Sashaʼs calculations, Andrii died on the morning of April 15, although the documents indicate the 17th.

- The first days he was on adrenaline, he said that everything was fine. I scolded him for what he did [flew to Mariupol]. — says Sasha. — On the fourteenth of April, he said that he was wounded in the shoulder. I didnʼt ask which one, because I heard that everything was bad, his hands were falling. I tried to support him all the time, wrote that we would get married when he returned, that he would still get a tattoo — I just knew that he would like to hear it. The only thing I didnʼt know was why he only trusted me and didnʼt tell anyone else where he was. And now I understand: that I should return him home.

3.

Sasha found out for sure that Andrii had died in May — she told his comrades, who survived and ended up in the hospital. How exactly he died — no one still knows. Sasha found Andriiʼs mother on Facebook — and thatʼs how she found out that he was married. The wife left for Germany at the beginning of the invasion.

Sasha asked Andriiʼs mother what happened to his body. It turned out that he is not there, and the mother does not know how to get her sonʼs body out of occupied Mariupol.

- I started thinking about what to do. And I came up with it, — says Sasha briefly.

Several of her acquaintances remained in Mariupol. She told them that she had lost her fiancé and asked them to search for the place where many Ukrainian soldiers had died. They checked and noticed in Kalmius a sunken Ukrainian armored personnel carrier that was breaking through to Azovstal. They couldnʼt get it on their own, so they invented a way — someone told the Russians about this place, and in May they raised an Azov armored personnel carrier to use it for propaganda. They shot a story about it, and the bodies that were in the armored personnel carrier were sent for exchange.

"My whole life froze then," says Sasha. ― I regretted three hundred times that I started this, because itʼs not like one day we invented it, the next day it was found, and then everything was normal. No.

Andriiʼs body was returned to Ukraine in June, but it was recognized only a few months later by the tattoo — a rose on one hand, a wolf from "The Witcher" on the other, the inscription hardcore on the fingers and Bart Simpson on the leg. Sasha and Andreyʼs parents were present at the identification. However, the father did not approach the body and is convinced that it was not his son who was buried. Andriaʼs wife, who did not come to the funeral, shares the same opinion.

"Mom recognized her by the leg, I didnʼt let her look anymore, because I knew the condition of the body," says Sasha.

Andrii was buried on August 1 in Baryshivka. The car with the coffin drove through a four-kilometer living corridor. All the time, Sasha was with Andriiʼs mother and grandmother.

"The funeral was long and painful," says Sasha modestly. — At the funeral, I looked at the coffin and thought that if he hadnʼt written to me in March, none of this would have happened, and I donʼt know when I would have remembered him.

4.

Yulia Mishchenko, Andriyʼs mother, is 48 years old. Her second, eldest son is also an "Azov", now he is at the front. Yuliya lives in Baryshivka, we talk on the phone. From time to time you can hear her rustling documents — she has a whole portfolio of them, 62 references.

The eldest son told her about Andriiʼs death on the night of April 17.

"And this is where this whole nightmare began," says Yulia. — Only Sasha and I were looking for the body. And then every reference is so nerve-wracking. First, the Military Commissariat gave a short list of what to collect: a death certificate, a birth certificate, Andriyʼs documents and mine, for the child. And then it turned out that there were many more documents [on the list], and no one explained anything to me.

The patronage service of "Azov" supervised the work of investigators and forensic experts. Thanks to their help, Andriy was buried on the day of recognition — August 1.

However, Julia had to collect most of the documents herself. Lists:

- About the cause of death. Death certificate. Identification protocols — 5 of them. Notification of the family about the death, without which nothing will happen. Andriiʼs [personal] documents. An extract from the order of the military unit that he was removed from security — it is impossible to get it at all, it was given to me somehow. Certificate of the village council on burial. Military Medical Commission. Extract from the Ministry of Defense that he died while defending the homeland. Oh my god, there are so many of them...

Some documents were particularly difficult to obtain. For example, the first certificate-notification of her sonʼs death from the military unit came to Yulia by mail a month after Andriyʼs funeral. Communication with the military unit did not work out — Yulia did not even know that her son was a spy and had such a level of secrecy.

"I asked the Patronage Service for the number of the military unit, came there and stood under the fence for hours for someone to come out to me," says Yulia. — And when they left, they didnʼt say their rank or name. They said to address "uncle". So I still have them written down in my phone: "reconnaissance in shoes", "reconnaissance with a folder". They say that everything about Andrii is classified and will be revealed only after 50 years. You come there as if it were unnecessary. When I submitted my DNA to the police in July, they sent me three letters in general, they said that we and that "Azov" had screwed them over and there was nothing to do if he was already dead. I submitted the DNA, but it was never entered into the database.

Appeals to the hotline of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs yielded nothing. Yuliya says that she communicates with the mothers of other victims, but they are from the Armed Forces, so they do not have such problems. Julia has already received compensation for the death of her son, which she shared with Andriiʼs father and his wife. It will still be necessary to receive money for the burial, to deal with the inheritance through a notary.

- Then I collected a package of documents for the Ministry of Defense so that the payment would be made. But thatʼs not the question, — Yulia says sadly.

She would like Andriy to posthumously receive the title of Hero of Ukraine for his efforts to unblock Mariupol. But in the military unit, she was told that his actions "do not contain the composition of a feat." They offered to write a petition. So Julia is looking for lawyers to help with this.

Yulia also helps other mothers of the dead to figure out what documents are needed, how to check the correct records, because the most important words — "died while defending the homeland" — are sometimes written "forget", replacing them in the morgue with "under unknown circumstances". Yulia answers calls at any time of the day and repeats that you need to pull yourself together and read everything carefully.

"There are mothers who have never left the village, they call and cry," says Yulia. — Everyone is different, but I try to explain.

Sasha says that he also does not understand why Andrei is not awarded posthumously:

- What is the difference between Andriy and anyone else who did get a title? Andriy flew to the blockade. It was a one-way ticket, it was clear from the very beginning, says Sasha.

Julia does not communicate with Andriiʼs wife. But she says that Sasha is like a daughter to her now.

- Sasha is simply a person sent to us by God. "If it werenʼt for her, I would never have found Andrii," Yulia says. — The worst thing is not knowing where your child is. Now the main thing is a petition for him and the rest of the guys who died with him, but they are all from different parts, I donʼt know all of them.

Sasha, on the other hand, believes that she did not do anything special — just such a coincidence. Andriya, although their relationship did not work out, still considers it special:

- I donʼt know such people anymore, actually. He was always in a hurry to live. And died as a hero. He was kind, polite, liked to court nicely, cooked deliciously, my dog loved him, but it didnʼt work out, ― and after a pause he adds: ― Itʼs good that it didnʼt work out. If it happened, I would lose a loved one like that?... I would go crazy.

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