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A documentary about prisoners and persons missing in the course of the RF aggression

THE LIMITS OF WAITING

challenge

Between heaven and earth

They are neither among the dead nor among the living. Hundreds of Ukrainian parents, wives and children wait for their coming home every day. At least 1500 people in Ukraine are still reported missing as a result of Russian aggression, according to the International Red Cross.

solution

Hope without limits: The stories of two Ukrainian families

For more than 1400 days, Kateryna Khomiak from Volyn has not heard anything about the destiny of her sons, Dmytro and Volodymyr, who both defended Ukraine in Donbas as members of the Aidar battalion. She spoke to them for the last time on September 5, 2014. During years of futile search, the family went through countless disappointments. “Everyone says the nights are short. But for me and for my wife, the night is always long,” their father says.

A former citizen of Crimea, Liudmyla Schekun, is still afraid for her family after the return of her husband, who had been held captive for three years. Crimean Euromaidan activist Andrii Schekun was abducted and tortured before annexation of the peninsula. He was kept in prison for 11 days, and then released after an exchange of prisoners.

These two stories were used as a basis for a documentary, The Limits of Waiting, presented by Internews Ukraine and Internews Network in autumn 2017. The script was written by Serhii Bibik, and the film director was Stanislav Tsekhmistrenko.

“I understood that someone has to start, to raise this issue, and that is why I agreed to go through all this pain again, regardless how difficult it was”, the mother of the missing brothers says. “Now, everyone whom they managed to drag out of there are my children”.

outcome

Law on missing individuals and victory in Madrid

With this documentary, we were the first to speak publicly about searching for prisoners and missing persons. Almost one year later – on July 12, 2018 – the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Law of Ukraine On Legal Status of Missing Individuals, which mandates that:

  • searches for missing people will continues until the place of residence or burial of an individual is established (in the past, searches only continued for three years);
  • the families of missing people will receive social assistance for the entire period of search for a missing person or until he/she is announced dead;
  • a special commission will deal with the issue of individuals missing as a result of war in Donbas.

Meanwhile, on July 28, 2018, The Limits of Waiting received international recognition with an award at the 8th Madrid International Film Festival in the category Best Foreign Language Documentary Director. Hundreds of viewers abroad saw the truth about Russia’s crimes on our land, and shared the pain from loss of the loved ones with the Ukrainians. This victory is the next nail in the coffin of Russian propaganda, which will be inevitably defeated.