MARIUPOL, Ukraine — A woman whose public abuse by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine roused anger over her treatment and concern for her fate has been freed from detention and allowed to leave rebel-controlled territory.
The woman, Irina Dovgan, 53, was accused by separatists of assisting the Ukrainian Army by acting as an artillery spotter. Separatist soldiers had wrapped her in a Ukrainian flag and forced her to stand on a sidewalk holding a sign saying “She kills our children,” while passers-by slapped and kicked her and spit on her.
A photograph of her mistreatment published by The New York Times stirred widespread outrage in Ukraine, prompted a social media effort to identify Ms. Dovgan and drew the attention of United Nations human rights monitors. The mounting attention precipitated her release.
On Thursday, Mark Franchetti, a reporter for the British newspaper The Sunday Times, and Dmitry Beliakov, a Russian freelance photographer, raised her case in a meeting with a senior rebel military commander, Aleksandr Khodakovsky, the leader of the Vostok Battalion, who ordered her release late Thursday evening in Donetsk, the capital of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic. Mr. Khodakovsky said those responsible would be disciplined.
“It doesn’t matter what she did,” Mr. Khodakovsky said in an interview. “She should not have been treated that way.”
Still in the clothes and flip-flops she wore when she was arrested five days earlier, her face puffy with bruises, Ms. Dovgan arrived at a hotel lobby minutes after her release in a dazed state and said, “I was prepared to die.”
On Mr. Khodakovsky’s orders, rebel soldiers allowed Ms. Dovgan to retrieve her dog and three cats from her house, which had been looted during her detention, and escorted her to the last separatist checkpoint outside Donetsk.
From there, Ms. Dovgan crossed to the Ukrainian lines and rejoined her family — her husband, Roman Taibov; her 16-year-old daughter, Tatyana; her 32-year-old son, Aleksei; and her 1-year-old granddaughter, Sofia — in a town near the Ukrainian-controlled city of Mariupol, where they had fled earlier.
Ms. Dovgan first gained wide recognition in Ukraine as an anonymous, terrified victim, whose face was smeared with hurled tomatoes and spit. But details of her life soon emerged: She studied economics in college and owned a beauty salon in her hometown, Yasinovataya, which was taken by rebels in April.
She was arrested after posting pro-Ukrainian views on social networking sites and giving food and clean clothes to Ukrainian soldiers when they approached the outskirts of her town. Rebels who searched her house found binoculars, she said.
Ms. Dovgan denied that she was a spotter aiding Ukrainian artillery units, and said the separatists never had any evidence that she was. She said she had been forced to stand on the sidewalk while passers-by beat her and spit on her because she refused to incriminate herself after a nightlong beating.
“I just wanted to die,” she said of the ordeal. “I lost myself. I thought: ‘This is my fate. God wants this for me. This is how it should be. Somebody should endure this.’ ” Rebel soldiers fired pistols beside her head in mock executions and beat her severely, leaving bruises on her arms and legs.
A report by the United Nations released last week that documents the conflict’s toll on civilians drew attention to indiscriminate shelling of residential areas by the Ukrainian Army and a wide range of abuses by pro-Russian separatists, including “killings, abductions, physical and psychological torture.” The report did not provide a definitive figure for the number of people held prisoner by separatists, but as of mid-August at least 498 people were believed to have been detained, often under harrowing conditions.
Separatists, who have introduced the death penalty for some offenses, have paraded prisoners of war in Donetsk and in Luhansk and compelled detainees to stand in public wearing signs hanging from string around their necks that listed their supposed crimes, much as Ms. Dovgan was forced to do.
Artillery barrages by unseen Ukrainian gunners that kill and wound dozens of residents of eastern Ukrainian towns daily have stirred rage. In Donetsk, as in other towns shelled in the conflict, that rage has been channeled into a hunt for artillery spotters.
After her release, Ms. Dovgan met Mauricio Lima, whose photograph drew wide attention to her plight after its publication in The New York Times last Tuesday.
“Thank you,” she said, and then she hugged him.