Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s President, reported on 17 June that Yulia Paievska, a Ukrainian military medic and a humanitarian also known as Taira, had been exchanged in a POW swap with Russia and returned home after spending three months in captivity. She recorded a video where she thanked Zelensky for setting up the swap. Daniil Bezsonov, an “official” of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic,” said she was exchanged for “some really important people.” VCHK-OGPU, a Telegram-channel, claims Taira was exchanged for a “high-ranking Chechen commander captured by the Ukrainian army earlier.” The same channel later reported that the man in question was Adam Saidov, 20, son of Murad Saidov, Chechnya’s deputy envoy to Crimea. 

War correspondent Irina Kuksenkova of Russia’s Channel One confirmed that Paievska was released but said the exchange was “an act of corruption.” “Isa Khachukaev and Murad Saidov had to rescue Adam Gritsenko [sic], Saidov’s son, from Ukraine’s captivity. Ukraine also delivered 25 million rubles (~€425,000), I think it was a bribe,” Kuksenkova wrote. Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Chechnya, and Murad Saidov denied this and threatened the journalist with the “fake news law” charges.

Isa Khachukaev is Kadyrov’s envoy to Crimea, while Murad Saidov is his assistant. The latter was detained in 2019 on suspicion of racketeering and beating up a business owner. Chehnya denied any ties with Saidov at first, but Kadyrov later admitted that Saidov indeed was the republic’s deputy envoy to Crimea. Saidov spent some time in a pre-trial facility and was released on pledge not to leave town; it is unknown what happened with the case later. A man named Murad Saidov was referred to as “leader of a Chechen ethnic gang in Zaporizhzhia” and linked to an attempted murder of a local mob kingpin in a Ukrainian crime-related media outlet in 2013.

A local branch of the state TV in Grozny, Chechnya, reported on 17 March that Adam Saidov had been kidnapped by the Ukrainian Security Service. Murad Saidov said the kidnappers referred to him as “a really bad guy and a friend of Kadyrov’s” and suggested that he “thinks it over.” “I have to say I’ve nothing to think about. We are Kadyrov’s allies,” is how Saidov commented on the kidnapping.

Surprisingly, Adam Saidov spoke to Volodymyr Zolkin, a Ukrainian journalist famous for setting up a Telegram-channel aimed at helping Russians find whereabouts of their relatives in captivity, in April. In the interview, Saidov denied that he had been kidnapped. He said the Ukrainian police indeed detained him on that day, checked his papers and then took him to “a safe place.” Adam reckons he was running the risk of becoming “a ritual sacrifice.” He also mentioned that he was a Ukrainian citizen taking a college degree in law and helping defend Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia region. Moreover, he called Kadyrov’s people “devious ones” and called upon ordinary Chechens to boycott the Ukraine War.

So, who is Taira after all?

Yulia “Taira” Paievska is a Ukrainian paramedic and humanitarian. She worked as a designer and an aikido coach back in the day before she started helping the wounded during the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv in December 2013. She then relocated to the Donbas and was later awarded the Ukraine’s Popular Hero medal, a non-governmental award. Taira saved over 500 lives as of 2019, according to Ukraine’s ArmyInform website. Paievska also created a course in tactical emergency medicine and established a group of volunteers called Taira’s Angels, just like Charlie’s Angels. Taira was her nickname in the World of Warcraft video game she used to play long ago. Taira’s Angels used to evacuate the wounded from the battlefields, provide them with first aid and take them to hospitals. The group also helped the civilians a lot. 

Paievska went to Berdyanske near Mariupol where Taira’s Angels’ HQ was located a few days before the war started. Vadym Puzanov, Paievska’s husband, says she rarely managed to give him a call as the city’s electricity supply was disrupted. “She did the same thing she had been doing for the past eight years: she helped evacuate the wounded from the battlezone. Taira’s Angels saved the injured Ukrainian servicemen and provided aid to the local civilians,” Puzanov https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/yuliya-payevska-polon-rosiya/31795955.htmltold Radio Free Europe. 

Paievska was captured by the Russian military on 16 March. The “DPR militia” arrested her in Manhush near Mariupol 14 km away from the group’s HQ. Puzanov is doubtful as to why Taira found herself in Mariupol, it is most likely that she retreated as the Russian military launched their offensive in the region. Before that, she escorted women and children through the Russia-created humanitarian escape corridor in the Zaporizhzhia region. Shortly after Taira had been captured, Russia’s NTV channel aired a story about her, claiming that she was “a Ukrainian nazi murderer,” linking her with the Azov regiment and accusing her of kidnapping two children from Mariupol whose parents had been killed. 

The Russian propaganda used Paievska’s photos with people wearing the Azov uniform as evidence of her connection with the regiment. “Taira has been meeting Ukrainian servicemen hundreds of times in the past eight years, how can these pictures be evidence?” her husband wonders. Russia’s NTV claims Paievska was “deeply connected with the Azov regiment affairs in Donbas and later tried to escape Mariupol wearing civilian clothing.” However, Taira is not even registered with the Ukrainian army. She did use to be a member of the military between 2018 and 2020 when she managed a hospital department in Mariupol. But after that, she left military service and continued her work as a volunteer.

NTV aired Taira’s “video message” from captivity on 21 March. In the video, one can see a bruise on her cheek; her hands are not visible and are most likely handcuffed. Paievska, as she speaks, asks everyone in charge to evacuate the civilians from “the Mariupol Inferno.” Paievska was mentioned in the POW exchange lists on 1 April, although the Russian side claimed they “did not have the woman.” Puzanov received numerous messages from unknown individuals at that time, who offered him to share some photos of Azov fighters from Mariupol in exchange for POW swap negotiations.

From a ‘Ukrainian Nazi’ to a ‘Regular Nurse’

Paievska’s release outraged the Russian war supporters. They would attack propaganda journalists with thousands of comments saying that “the Ukrainian nazi whose war crimes were shown in an NTV film was exchanged in a hugger-mugger way, so nobody would learn about this had not Zelensky said.” The people wondered “how important that individual might be if they were swapped for an Azov fighter.” Sergey Mardan of Komsomolskaya Pravda set up a survey on his Telegram-channel where he asked his readers whether Taira’s exchange was indeed necessary. Only 5% of the voters said yes, yet 29% believed this should not had been done. Others voted for the option reading “Anyone should be exchanged if this saves our soldiers’ lives.”

Alexey Larkin of Russia Today also criticised the decision. “How much longer are we going to tolerate such shithousery from our Defence Ministry, the General Staff and other bodies of power? If you exchanged her for a decent person, go ahead and reveal the name. If not, stop dusting our eyes,” he wrote. There were comments even tougher than this: “The Kremlin is losing its authority” or “This is a disgrace, they should not remain silent” or “Our special services are full of morons.” 

The pro-Putin media changed their narrative towards the weekend. ASTRA, a Telegram-channel, noticed that the pro-war channels had posted texts saying that Paievska was a regular medic and not an Azov fighter on Sunday evening. Pool 3, one such channel, called Taira “a regular nurse of no interest in terms of war crimes investigation.” Sergey Mardan’s Monday morning radio programme hosted several “experts” who reprimanded Kuksenkova who had reported “an act of corruption” and mocked her sources. Mardan noted that the people started to criticise the exchange of Taira after Zelensky said it was “a massive victory for Ukraine.” He also wondered what made Paievska so famous, while his guest, Vladlen Tatarsky, assumed that “all of her war crimes is a cock-and-bull story.” 

Dmitry Popov of Moskovsky Komsomolets said the following: “It’s good to hear something from Kadyrov on Taira’s matter. It’s bad, though, that there would be no information had Kadyrov not revealed it. Our officials are reluctant to speak to the people. The bad thing is they don’t want to learn. It’s been three days already, which is ages in today’s terms. They should have said something.”

Margarita Simonyan and Vladimir Solovyov, Russia’s biggest propagandists, have people asking them “what’s with the Taira?!” all over their social media. “Why don’t you say something?” And they hear nothing but silence. Although Sergey Karnaukhov, a host at Solovyov’s YouTube channel, says “the Taira special operation is far from over.”