The ten Ukrainian prisoners, two of them monks, were reunited with their families at kyiv’s international airport.
Some of those released had been captured before the full-scale invasion of Russia in 2022.
It is rare for people detained after 2014 to be released, when Russia illegally annexed Crimeabut it is known that the Vatican has participated in his release.
Two of the released, Ivan Levytskyi and Bohdan Geleta, were monks. Levytskyi had been detained in 2022 inside his church in the occupied city of Berdiansk, in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Among those released was Nariman Dzhelyal, deputy head of the Mejlis, the representative body of the Tatar community living in Crimea.
The body moved to kyiv after Russia seized the peninsula. Dzhelyal, who continued to live in Crimea Despite the annexation, he was kidnapped a year before the war.
“I was in captivity, where many Ukrainians remain,” he said. “We can’t leave them there, because the conditions, both psychological and physical, are very frightening there“.
In the main lobby of the airport, where pre-war advertisements still hang, former prisoners draped in blue and yellow flags They reunited with their families and they called those who couldn’t be there.
“I really want to hug you. I’ll be with you soon, mommy,” said Isabella Pekh, daughter of liberated art historian Olena Pekh, via video call. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t see you here.”
Isabella Pekh’s mother was detained in the occupied part of the Donetsk region. For almost six years, Isabella spoke at international conferences and He asked foreign ambassadors for help to free his mother. Ultimately, his efforts were successful.
“It was six years of hell that cannot be described in words. But I knew that I had my homeland, that I had people who loved me, that I had my daughter,” said Olena Pekh.
According to the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War of Ukraine, so far 3,310 Ukrainians have been released from Russian captivity. But many thousands of Ukrainians, both civilian and military, remain imprisoned.
