Civilian abducted during occupation of Bucha brought back to Ukraine
Civilian Serhii Akhmetov has been brought back to Ukraine as part of the latest prisoner of war exchange. He was captured by Russian forces in March 2022 during the occupation of the Ukrainian city of Bucha and had been missing ever since.
Source: Mayor of Bucha Anatolii Fedoruk
Details: Mayor Fedoruk, with the family's permission, published photos of Serhii before and after his captivity. Media Initiative for Human Rights reported that before the full-scale invasion, Akhmetov used to make wooden toys. When Russian forces invaded the city, his family evacuated while he stayed at home. On 9 March 2022, occupiers broke into his home and abducted him.
Serhii's wife Olena said Russians initially held him illegally at Hostomel airport. This information was confirmed by other released civilians.
By the end of March 2022, Serhii and other Ukrainians were transferred through Belarus to the pre-trial detention centre No. 2 in the town of Novozybkov in Russia's Bryansk Oblast, where he remained at least until May 2023.
Quote from Media Initiative for Human Rights: "The occupiers hide the fact that they are holding civilians there illegally. They are forbidden to sit, given little time to wash or eat properly, and are almost never allowed outside. Ukrainians are also subjected to ideological pressure and cannot communicate with their relatives. Poor detention conditions have worsened the health of those held, yet they receive no proper medical treatment."
More details: In April 2022, the Red Cross confirmed Serhii Akhmetov was in Russian captivity and delivered a note to Olena stating he was "alive and well".
In December of the same year, a Telegram channel run by the Russian occupying forces posted that Serhii Akhmetov and two other civilian Ukrainians were "detained for resisting the SVO [so-called 'special military operation'] and are undergoing filtration".
At the end of summer 2023, Olena learned that her husband had likely been moved to Russia's Vladimir Oblast.
She said that all this time Serhii did not even know whether his children had survived the attacks in Kyiv Oblast in 2022.
Quote from Fedoruk: "After three long years of waiting, Serhii is free again. He is now in hospital receiving the care he needs. There's still a road to recovery, but the most important thing has already happened: he's free and back home in Ukraine. For our community this is not only a personal victory but also a symbol of hope for everyone waiting for their loved ones."
Further details: Thirty-three civilian residents of the Bucha hromada remain in Russian captivity. [A hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories – ed.]
Background: It was reported earlier that Ukraine has returned to Russia the husband of activist Irina Krynina from the Nash Vykhod movement [Our Way Out, a Russian initiative supporting families of POWs] as part of a prisoner exchange. Two years ago she travelled to Ukraine to bring him back home but he refused at the time.
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