plant with his father had been friends for over a decade their relationship was cemented when both bought dogs during the coronavirus pandemic according to baranovs commonlaw wife ilona slyva their evening walks continued even after russia seized their hometown of nova kakhovka shy baranov with a giant black italian mastiff and pryshliak with a toy poodle whose apricot fur matched his beardtheir walk ran late the night of aug 15 and pryshliak decided to stay at baranovs apartment rather than risk being caught breaking the russian curfew neighbors later told the family that 15 armed russian soldiers swooped in ransacked the apartment and seized the menfor a month they were in the local jail with conditions relaxed enough that slyva was able to talk to pryshliak through the fence baranov he told her couldnt come outshe sent in packages of food and clothes but did not know if they were reaching him finally on baranovs birthday she bought his favorite dessert of cream eclairs smashed them up and slipped in a scrap of paper with her new russian phone number scrawled on it she hoped the guards would have little interest in the sticky mess and just pass it alonga month went by and the families learned the men had been transferred to a new prison in sevastopol in crimea then the trail went darkfour more months passed then a call came from the family of a man they had never met but would soon come to know well pavlo zaporozhetszaporozhets a ukrainian from the occupied kherson region charged with international terrorism was sharing a cell in rostov with baranov since he faced charges he had a lawyerit was then that slyva knew her gift of eclairs and the phone number smuggled within them had reached its destination baranov had memorized her number and passed it through a complex chain that finally got news of him to her on april 7baranov wrote that he was accused of espionage an accusation that slyva scorned as falling apart even under russias internal logic he was detained in august and russia illegally annexed the regions only in octoberwhen he was detained he was on his own national territory she said they thought and thought and invented a criminal case against him for espionagebaranov wrote home that he was transported across prisons with his eyes closed in two planes one of which had about 60 people he and pryshliak were separated at their third transfer in late winter pryshliaks family has received a form letter from the rostov prison denying he is an inmate therethe number of civilian detainees has grown rapidly over the course of the war in the first wave early on russian units moved in with lists of activists proukrainian community leaders and military veterans melitopol mayor ivan fedorov was taken when russian forces seized control of his city but exchanged within a week for nine russian soldiers he saidthen they focused on teachers and doctors