Wives Ukrainian soldiers beg Pope to save their husbands

The husbands of Katheryna Prokopenko and Yulya Fedosiuk are trapped at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Catholic News Agency reports. Propenko is married to lieutenant colonel Denis, and Fedosiuk is married to sergeant Areseni.

The two women told the Pope about the dire condition their husbands are in. Fedosiuk said in a video interview that they told the head of Vatican that 700 soldiers are injured. "They have gangrene, amputations, their flesh is rotting, and many of them died. We cannot bury them according to our Christian tradition and asked the Pope to help us." According to the women, many civilians are still trapped at the steel plant. Most of them are related to the Ukrainian fighters and fear that the Russians will kill and torture their soldiers.

Severe scarcities

In addition, food, water and medical supplies are scarce, Prokopenko and Fedosiuk said to the Pope. Mariupol has no functioning hospitals because they are all bombed by the Russians. One of the military husbands asked his wife to look up an article on how to survive without water for as long as possible.

Propenko added that she experienced the meeting with the Pope as a historical moment. "We hope this meeting will give us a chance to save their lives", Vatican News writes.

Evacuation to a third country

Both of the Ukrainian wives hope that the Pope can help to set up humanitarian corridors to evacuate the remaining people at the steel plant in Mariupol. They handed him two letters. One of them was signed by Metropolitan Onufriy, and the other one was of the women themselves. In it, they asked the Pope to go to Ukraine and speak with Putin, Catholic News Agency reports. Pope Francis promised them that he would pray for the dire situation.

Propenko and Fedosiuk hope that their husbands and the other people at the steel plant can be evacuated to a third country. They appealed to the international community to help establish a humanitarian corridor to achieve that goal. "If our husbands could go somewhere else, we would go with them. Then we hope to go back to Kyiv and the Ukraine we love. It is important for us; we don't want to be refugees."