Defence analyst, Kyiv School of Economics; former Marine sergeant, Armed Forces of Ukraine
A marine sergeant of Ukraine's 36th Brigade who defended the Illich steelworks at Mariupol and spent nearly two and a half years as a prisoner of war before his release in September 2024. He now heads national security and defence programmes at the Kyiv School of Economics, and his analysis has appeared in the Washington Post and at the Atlantic Council. His story runs across a three-part arc on this podcast.
He really represents to me the soldiers that do the hardest work in any war — which is the enlisted soldiers, the sergeants who lead those soldiers. And his story literally starts with him on a bus coming back from vacation. He could have stayed away. He could have been out of the country.
Photo: McCain Institute
The origin story before the captivity arc: Poltava, Maidan from abroad, signing with Ukraine’s oldest Marine battalion without telling his parents — and holding a Mariupol factory position for a month, knowing the only outcomes were death or captivity.
Watch & read →
Rob Lee interviews Ievgen Malik on Mariupol’s final days: the failed April 9th breakout that killed ~400 marines in one night, the negotiation on the bridge, the surrender — and the descent through Olenivka into Ryazhsk prison, where the beatings began on arrival.
Watch & read →
The captivity story concludes: told he was going home, Ievgen Malik was instead transferred to Prison No. 10 in Mordovia — the standing regime, ritualized beatings, scars hidden from inspectors — until Friday, September 13th, 2024, when his name was finally called.
Watch & read →
Two Marines of the same 36th Brigade battalion — one British, one Ukrainian — together for the first time since Russian captivity: the siege of Mariupol, the breakout attempts, capture, torture, the show trial — and the warning both now carry to the West.
Watch & read →
Ukraine Military History Institute