A lot depends on the circumstances under which you try to define or feel your own loneliness.
Let me begin with my biography — my recent story. I joined the army in the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, as an officer in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. I had never served in the military before, and I never thought I would.
In fact, I considered myself an anti-militarist — and still do.
Yet, I see no contradiction between that and being proudly a senior lieutenant in the Armed Forces. Within three and a half months of participating in the liberation of the Kyiv Oblast and other operations further east, half of my platoon — eight of my subordinates and I — was captured by Russian forces in Luhansk Oblast.
What followed were two years and four months of Russian captivity. I was a prisoner of war, held the entire time in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory — the very region we were defending.
For some reason, keeping me as a POW wasn’t enough — perhaps because they learned I was a journalist and human rights activist.
A few months into my captivity, they fabricated a criminal case against me. The following year, I was sentenced as a “war criminal” to 13 years in a penal colony for supposed heinous crimes.
I felt lonely because of what I had experienced.
The only evidence against me was a confession — extracted under duress. I prefer that phrasing, as it avoids the word “torture.”
I was part of a prisoner exchange in October of last year.
Naturally, I’m incredibly happy to be free. But it also breaks my heart — almost everyone I spent those years with in captivity, except for two, are still there. And of my own platoon, four remain incarcerated.
As a former POW, when you’re released and return to your native city — Kyiv, which I’ve never loved more — you meet hundreds, even thousands, of wonderful people, joyful to see you free. I felt an overwhelming lightness, warmth, and happiness. And yet, at the same time, I understood — and so did many of them — that something fundamental had changed between us. I felt lonely because of what I had experienced.
I’ve been to places and seen things they never have — and I hope they never will. But I also realized that our worldviews had diverged. How we see and feel the world is no longer the same.
Most of them, when they thought about it — without any prompting — said, “No, we don’t know what you went through.” And that’s true for every former prisoner of war or civilian detainee.
This is what distinguishes a war veteran or a civilian under occupation from everyone else. We are shaped by what we live through.
It’s a strange thing, to feel lonely in such a significant — perhaps even defining — part of your life. But it’s a kind of chosen loneliness, because you don’t want others to feel what you felt. You don’t want them to go through what you endured.
In captivity, our guards deliberately tried to inflict another kind of loneliness. They worked to break us — morally, psychologically, and yes, physically. Especially in the first several months, we were held incommunicado, with no contact with the outside world.
They repeatedly told us: “You’ve been abandoned. Everyone has forgotten you. You are on your own. You're at our mercy. No one can reach you. We can do whatever we want. No one cares.”
Daria Shulzhenko
I was lucky. I never believed it. Not for a single second — not even in the darkest moments. I placed all my trust in my loved ones — my family, my friends, my colleagues, and just kind people out there — believing they remembered me, remembered us.
Other Ukrainian POWs came to hear me say it out loud: “We are not forgotten.” That kind of destructive loneliness didn’t work. Physically, we were isolated — but morally, we were not.
“You don’t know what’s happening. You don’t understand. Wake up.”
The loneliness I felt after my release was of a different kind. It wasn’t about isolation. It was more complex. At the same time, I knew I was free because of other people. They had written letters, led campaigns, given interviews, and posted on social media. In the final months of my captivity, I learned there was a campaign of solidarity for me — but I couldn’t have imagined the scale of it.
After my release, I kept meeting strangers who had participated in it. And I know I am free, to the extent possible, because of them.
I had plenty of time in captivity to reflect. My first degree is in philosophy — it never fades. I realized I had never treasured people as deeply as I do now. I began to grasp how much I am human — at my best — because of others.
I recently returned from an advocacy trip across Europe, specifically within the EU. And I felt something many Ukrainians abroad have shared with me — being in a peaceful country untouched by what we’ve endured for more than three years now.
I felt joy simply observing people. Watching groups of young people rushing through their day-to-day lives. I was so happy to see people living in normalcy. They should not endure what we’re living through. That’s a good thing. That’s human.
War is a state of profound dehumanization. People aren’t meant to live through it. I was glad to see them. But at the same time, I felt like I knew something they didn’t. I had this urge to walk up to someone, shake them, and say, “You don’t know what’s happening. You don’t understand. Wake up.”
It’s a kind of loneliness rooted in experience — that of a former prisoner of war. We’ve lived through something I sincerely hope no other community or country will ever have to experience. And as terrible as it sounds, I want us to be alone in that experience. Because if we’re not, it means we failed to defend ourselves, and others had to share this tragedy with us.
I would hope we rather remain lonely in that regard.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.
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