He defended Mariupol, spent 86 days at Azovstal, from where he was captured by the Russians, survived the terrorist attack in Olenivka, torture and abuse. A native of the village of Balabyne, Zaporizhia district, Azov officer Igor Titovsky returned from Russian captivity on September 13, 2024, weighing 50 kg. - The issue was no longer even about food, but about ammunition. Their supply stopped when we were taken into the ring. This did not allow us to hold on. The same with replenishing personnel, taking out the wounded. The guys showed heroism and left the positions only when they no longer had a leg, arm, broken head, or punctured abdominal cavity. If they simply shot through, badly injured an arm or leg, they put it in a plaster cast and continued on to the position. There was no one who left it because of a headache or stomachache.

In Mariupol at that time, even contusions were not counted as wounds. – I told my battalion commander that we would not survive until the end of March. Purely by dry mathematics, when the enemy’s personnel are 10 times more than ours, we cannot hold out. They also had an advantage in weapons. We held out through March, then April, more than until mid-May. And we could still do it. Then everyone was already at Azovstal. There were no positions in the city. The garrison that defended the plant remained alive. Morally, almost all the personnel that remained in the garrison at that time understood that they would not survive. It was only a matter of time before this happened. But all the guys stood to the end. No one was going to run away anywhere, surrender.

In my opinion, if we had not been in Mariupol, they would not have gathered so many troops around it. But this ideology in the person of “Azov” – to overcome nationalism, national consciousness – was the reason why they threw so many troops into Mariupol. About the explosion in Olenivka The guards were relatively far from us – 100 meters in the trenches from the playground. The guards who were watching us did not come close. At the time of the explosion, they were sitting in the trench, dugouts. There were even bunkers, bags, boxes of earth there. About Russian captivity We were beaten, if I may say so. There were guys 20 years old, “Azov” are usually athletic guys, strong, but they also lost consciousness because they were beaten hard. Especially if they saw tattoos, and “Azov” has a lot of them. Any crossing of lines was considered a swastika in captivity. Even if you explain to them 300 times that this is an abstraction – it’s still “Nazis” for them. Any image of a forest meant that you were definitely a sniper. Even if the SEALs had a tattoo, they would still think it was Nazi.

I had three days of very serious interrogations, where they beat my legs. In general, my entire left side was beaten very badly, it turned black. One leg even started to fester. I couldn’t stand on it, because the festering reached the ankle joint. It was a new hell, because they really liked shockers. That’s where I first encountered it. The “receptions” began again. New sensations. There was another interrogation. The FSB officers interrogated me with electric shock for two days. They put a bag over my head, tied my hands behind my back, threw me to the ground… Two of them sat on me and turned on the electric shock. - They beat me with their hands, kicked me,batons, plastic water pipes. When my weight reached 50 kg (before being captured, the man weighed 70 kg), they said: “Hold your abs, now we’re going to punch you.” And then they asked: “How did I punch you, okay?”

I lived without socks and underwear the entire time I was in captivity. In the summer of 2024, some big Moscow inspection came. We prepared very carefully for it, and then we were given underwear for a week. We thought they wouldn’t take them away from us. It was so funny when they told us to give our underwear back. Before that, we had to wash them and dry them right on us. We were prepared for two weeks before the Red Cross arrived. For example, they brought us a tank with a water tap and told us to fill it with water, but not to touch it. When the commission came and asked what kind of barrel it was, we were to answer: “It’s boiled water.” When asked how often it was changed, we were to answer: “Every day.” The same can be said about the food, which is meat and fish every day. They also gave out a few bars of soap, rolls of toilet paper, and mugs. It had to be neatly placed on the bedside tables and not used until the commission arrived. Once we were beaten for drinking half a barrel of water because it was a little warmer than from the tap.

Everyone remembers this, because the exchange took place on September 13. When we got off the bus, we saw the scoreboard and started laughing. The time on the clock was “13:13.” Then I said that if someone tells me that 13 is an unlucky number or Friday the 13th is a cursed day, I can safely spit in their eyes. This is the happiest date and the happiest day in my life. The sunrise on my land is beyond words. These are different feelings.Coming to your own land is something that cannot be described in words. It is a different feeling.Coming to your own land is something that cannot be described in words. It is a different feeling.