A Ukrainian journalist who was held incommunicado by Russia for more than three years has been released on Sunday as part of the latest prisoner exchange between Moscow and Kyiv.
For more than three years, Dmytro Khilyuk, 50, was one of the thousands of Ukrainian civilians detained in Russia, something illegal under international law.
Khilyuk’s elderly parents had no information about his whereabouts but kept campaigning for his release.
Attending the meeting with politicians in Ukraine and abroad, going to protests and tirelessly writing to Russian authorities.
A video from the exchange on Sunday released by Ukrainian authorities showed Khilyuk calling his mother just moments after crossing into Ukraine.
“I knew you cared about me and worried about me. Mum, don’t cry. I’ll be home soon,” he can be heard saying.
Khilyuk and his father Vasyl were detained by Russian troops while attempting to get basic supplies during the occupation of their village, Kozarovychi, north of Kyiv.
While Vasyl Khyliuk was released a few days later, Dmytro disappeared without a trace.
Moscow repeatedly denied holding him, despite numerous accounts from fellow prisoners placing him in detention facilities in Russia.
The Russian Investigative Committee and the Russian Prison Service in Bryansk both officially informed the Khyliuks’ lawyer in December 2022 and January 2023 that he was not in Russia and that they had no information about him.
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