"The hope of coming home kept us going": stories of soldiers released on first day of large-scale prisoner swap

A total of 390 Ukrainians, including reconnaissance men and marines, were brought home during a prisoner exchange on 23 May 2025. Each of them has been through tough challenges, including illness, significant weight loss, and prolonged separation from their families.

Source: Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia (UP.Life)

"I'll fatten you up"

After 22 months of Russian captivity, Oleksandr could finally hug his wife Olena again. She was in tears as she met the husband for whom she had waited so long.

Olena told Slidstvo.info that she had gone several times to meet defenders when they were brought back from captivity, and she hadn’t expected to see her beloved husband this time.

"You can't live [in captivity] without faith; you have to believe every day. I had someone to remember about – my family gave me strength," Oleksandr said when asked whether he had kept on hoping that he would be brought home.

The defender said he had dreamed of coming home more than anything else and admitted that he was looking forward to tucking into some dressed herring and Olivier salad.

"I’ll fatten you up," Olena said, smiling.

"My dad is finally home"

Another of the defenders who have come home is Ihor Kupriienko, a soldier in the 36th Separate Brigade of the Armed Forces who was taken prisoner more than three years ago. His family last heard from him in April 2022, the Ukrinform news agency reported.

"On Marine Corps Day, after more than three years of captivity, my dad is finally home," Ihor's daughter Anna Fedirko wrote on Instagram.

Anna said that during those three years, the family had kept fighting for Ihor to be released from captivity, constantly taking part in campaigns and having meetings with the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

In March 2023, Anna and her husband were trapped under the rubble of an apartment building in Zaporizhzhia which was hit by a Russian missile. The attack killed 13 people and completely destroyed one section of the building.

Anna, who was pregnant, and her husband were rescued from under the rubble of the five-storey building by the State Emergency Service.

No hugs because he is seriously ill

Petro, a marine, is home after over three years in captivity. His wife Olena said she had gone to the exchange without any hope of seeing her husband because she was afraid of being disappointed.

"I didn't even think about it. I didn't want to be completely overwhelmed if he wasn't there. I was just calmly going to meet the marines," Olena said.

Unexpectedly, her beloved was among the soldiers exchanged in the thousand-for-thousand swap.

Olena could only see her husband through a hospital window. They could not even hug, because Petro is seriously ill after being infected with tuberculosis in captivity. He was brought back to Ukraine in an ambulance.

During the occupation, he was a partisan and later became an intelligence agent

Mykola Znaida, a 37-year-old scout, is back in Ukraine after nearly two years in captivity. For the past six months, his relatives had had no information about him.

Mykola’s home village of Ozera in Kyiv Oblast was occupied at the start of the full-scale invasion. Initially, he assisted servicemen guarding Antonivka airport, later hiding them at his home.

Mykola then began to operate as a partisan against the Russians, but he later joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine and became an intelligence officer.

He performed combat tasks on the Donetsk front – in Bakhmut, Kramatorsk, Lyman and Serebrianka Forest in Luhansk Oblast, where he was captured in 2023.

Mykola’s relatives had had no information about his whereabouts since November 2024, except that in December he was moved from a prison camp in Sverdlovsk, Russia, to an unknown destination.

Mykola’s father also served in the army but resigned in May 2023.

"The hope of coming home kept us going"

A soldier named Mykola has also come back to Ukraine.

"Thirty-seven months of exhaustion. It was hard," the defender said. "Coming home was magical, especially the journey here. They’d fed us so much propaganda, especially just before we left.

But we saw so many people – whole villages – who came out to meet us. People were crying and smiling. It’s very emotional."

Mykola says he was captured from the Illich Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol in April 2022. He jokes that after captivity, his physical condition became "very athletic" – he lost nearly half his body weight, dropping from 112 to 65 kg (247 to 139 lb).

After the exchange, he managed to contact his loved ones and learned about his two brothers, who also serve in the army. He says he is deeply worried about his relatives – his older brother remains in captivity.

Mykola and his friend admit that thoughts of Ukraine helped them endure captivity.

"What kept us going was our ability to endure and the hope of coming home, where our loved ones were waiting. [...]

[In captivity – ed.] we remembered what was good in Ukraine," the defenders said.

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