Marina Perederii’s home in the small mining town of Vuhledar in eastern Ukraine was her pride and joy.
17 Sadovaya Street was little more than a shell when she and her husband bought it.
They decorate the house with love, painting cherry blossoms and doves – symbols of love and well-being – in their bedroom. They built a swimming pool in the garden and a sauna in the basement.
“Everything was planned with such passion,” he told the BBC World Service. But the peace would not last forever.
In February 2022, Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine. Marina’s husband left to fight while she took their children and ran. Before running away, he recorded what he thought would be his last view of their home.
“My house, I don’t know if it will stop or not. I don’t know if we will ever come back here…or if we will survive at all,” he said in the video.
The next time he saw his home was a year later in February 2023, through the eyes of a Russian soldier, in body camera footage posted on social media.
A sailor named Fima was in his living room, looking at pictures of Marina and her family. “She’s beautiful,” he said looking at one picture.
It was a cool picture that made him angry. “I wish I had taken the albums with me,” said Marina.
Ukraine spent two and a half years defending Vuhledar before Russia took control of the city in early October.
During the long war, in late January 2023, Fima had led a group of soldiers in the suburbs and was caught in a heavy battle on Sadovaya Street. He and others entered Marina’s house.
As his body camera footage spread around the house, Fima was hailed as a hero. Official records show he was recalled in February 2023 due to a leg injury.
But what the pictures did not reveal was that the Russians were keeping a captured Ukrainian soldier in Marina’s basement, who was starving and in need of medical attention. His name was Oleksii.
Before the war, Oleksii worked as an IT specialist. When Russia invaded his country, he volunteered to fight and later became a drone operator in Vuhledar. His love for dancing earned him the name Dancer.
When the Russians broke through the Ukrainian lines in late January 2023, Oleksii and his comrades tried to retreat, but some of them, including Oleksii, were shot.
Injured, they were taken from house to house by Russian soldiers, and Oleksii ended up in the basement of Marina’s house.
He was detained for almost a month – Russian photos uploaded online show him wrapped in Marina’s carpets.
When the Russian troops finally retreated, they left Oleksii behind. In total he spent 46 days in Marina’s house and most of the time he did not have food or water.
Injured, hungry and dehydrated, he was unable to leave the building.
“I managed to find crumbs on the ground,” he told the BBC World Service from Kyiv.
“There was a piece of cracker, which was stolen by a mouse at night. I hid it, maybe the mouse stole it because I couldn’t find it.”
But hunger was nothing compared to thirst. One day, after the Russians had left, the great need for water nearly killed Oleksii.
He tore through the panels of the sauna in the hope that there might be water inside the pipes. He managed to break one open and drank the liquid inside, but it didn’t last. Those few drinks caused internal burns and nearly died.
Then in March of that year, when Ukrainian forces recaptured parts of Vuhledar and reached Sadovaya Street, another video from Marina’s home was broadcast. It shows ex-New Zealander Kane Te Tai coming in at number 17 and finding Oleksii.
“New Zealand, New Zealand, it’s me!” Oleksii calls out to his colleague, who had gone to fight for Ukraine. Te Tai died in battle just two weeks later.
Oleksii was taken out of the house and taken to a safe place.
If he had been left for just a few days, Oleksii says he would not have succeeded.
Several other Ukrainian and Russian soldiers are known to have died in and around Sadovaya Street during the fighting for Vuhledar.
“Thank God Oleksii survived. But the death of people in my house shocked me,” he said. “There is only death there.”
The BBC World Service asked the Russian Ministry of Defense about Oleksii’s treatment but it did not respond.
Half a year after Oleksii’s rescue, his Russian captor was praised at home. He was no longer called by his phone brand, Fima, but by his first name, Andrei. State TV footage shows him re-enacting the Vuhledar attack and sharing his experience with primary school children, where teachers present him as a hero.
The BBC compared this photo with pictures of Andrei from hundreds of social media profiles and found similarities – the same hairline, the same mole on the neck, and clear evidence of a leg injury.
Number 17: My House of Horrors
A BBC Eye investigation from the World Service reveals how a family home in eastern Ukraine became the scene of three lives caught up in the war: a fleeing homeowner, a starving prisoner and a Russian soldier.
Watch on BBC iPlayer (UK Only) or on the BBC World Service YouTube channel (outside the UK)
His full name is Andrei Efimkin – a 28-year-old born in the Russian Far East.
We contacted him and asked him about the video on Sadovaya Street, specifically where he flipped through photos of Marina’s family. He told us he was playing a “psychological trick” because of the incoming gunfire.
“I took the album and started looking at the pictures to distract myself,” he said.
“You know, actually, I felt very cold. Second, to be honest, these thoughts ran through my mind – about who lives here.”
But when asked about Marina directly, Efimkin said he didn’t want to answer any more questions and hung up.
Now Marina is in Germany. As time passes, he tries to build a new life, learn a new language and find bits of work here and there – but he still mourns his lost home in Vuhledar.
“It’s very difficult. I still see my house in my dreams, you are always in my head. I still hope that Ukraine will win and everything will be fine, we will come back,” he said.
“My world is there, the spirit is mine.”
But back on Sadovaya Street there is almost nothing left of his beloved house, which is not a shell anymore.
It can be seen in aerial drone footage of the blue area, where his swimming pool used to be, against a background of gray debris.
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