“They don’t walk, they don’t talk, the situation is on the edge.” Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians are being held captive. Who is the Russian Federation returning?

Who are the 120 civilians that Russia has agreed to release?

Why are those on the list of political prisoners excluded from the 1,000-for-1,000 exchange?

Which residents of southern Ukraine still have relatives waiting to be released from captivity?

What do human rights activists say about the results of the exchange?

And how do they respond to criticism of the exchange carried out in the Coordination Headquarters?

Read all about this in the material of the Radio Liberty project "News of the Sea of Azov".

Maxim Dolzhenko is a resident of Melitopol, who was a prominent figure in the city before the full invasion. He participated in Euromaidan, went to protests and supported pro-Ukrainian initiatives.

In December 2022, Russian state agencies distributed a video in which Dolzhenko is in a Ukrainian military uniform. Although he was not subject to military service due to health reasons and had never served in the army. At the time the Russian media distributed the video, Dolzhenko had already been in captivity for half a year, according to his mother Tatyana.

"On May 2, 2022, they came home, dragged him outside, stripped him. And then, when they brought him out, they put a bag over his head and put him in the car - that's their practice. As soon as they took him, they kept him in the former local police station. From there, they took him to a so-called garage. It was an ordinary garage, made of metal. There were many girls and boys there.

They told me that his speech was taken away, that he couldn’t speak. They would lead him like that for three or four days, and then they would drag him, throw him on the floor. And he lay there, motionless. What did they do to him? I don’t even want to imagine. He didn’t talk, he couldn’t talk. The guys who were with him taught him to speak again,” the mother of a captured Melitopol resident told Novine Priazovya.

 

“They are accusing him of ‘aiding terrorism’”

 

Now Tetyana has to gather information about her son step by step. She knows that the occupiers took him from Melitopol back in 2022 – according to unverified information, to Krasnodar, Russia. In the Russian Federation, he was accused of ‘aiding terrorism.’ All three years that Maksim has been in captivity, his mother has been sending appeals to Ukrainian and international organizations.

“In the first days of my captivity, I contacted the SBU. Although it was impossible at the time, it didn’t matter – I was in Melitopol. I wrote a statement online. They transferred all this information to the Coordination Headquarters. That is, since 2022 I have been communicating with the Coordination Headquarters and the Security Service.

When I went to Zaporozhye in 2024, I went to the police, wrote a statement there. I even wrote a statement and sent it to the UN. They communicated with me in April,” said Tetyana.

From May 23 to 25, Ukraine and Russia organized a large-scale exchange of prisoners, which was agreed upon by the delegations of the two countries at the talks in Istanbul. Among the 1,000 people released by each side, 120 civilians were released. Maksim Dolzhenko was not among those released.

 

Reports of murder, torture, and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war are regularly received. In November 2024, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry in Ukraine published a report stating that the Russian authorities and military have repeatedly used and continue to use torture against the Ukrainian military and civilians in the territories of Ukraine that are or were under Russian control.

The Geneva Conventions oblige warring parties to ensure the normal detention of prisoners, prohibit ill-treatment, oblige them to provide contact with relatives and the possibility of contact with international humanitarian organizations.

The fate of the mayor of Kherson: “Deported deep into the Russian Federation”

 

The mayor of Kherson, Igor Kolikhayev, has also not been released. The official remained in the occupied city in the first months of the full-scale Russian invasion. On June 28, 2022, the mayor of Kolikhayev, Galina Lyashevskaya, reported that the mayor had been taken by the Russian occupiers. Igor Kolikhayev's son, Svyatoslav, told the Pryazovye newspaper the latest information he knows about his father.

 

"After Chongar, he was already in Taganrog. The last thing we know is that he had already been deported deep into Russia. People came from exchanges: in December, in February, they talked about him, that they had seen him there.

As for his health, they say he is in critical condition. He has problems with his leg, he has some kind of skin disease. They say he can barely walk. His condition is also very bad," Svyatoslav said.

Svyatoslav Kolikhayev says he is sending letters to officials responsible for negotiating his release. But he has not yet received any concrete information.

"I continue to write letters to the Coordination Headquarters and receive the same formal answers. Honestly, I feel despair and indifference. I cannot understand this attitude. I do not understand and do not want to understand why he is being treated this way. Why is there such open indifference to his situation? Why do they not want to communicate with me? Why do they not publicize this situation?", remarks Svjtoslav.

Given the hostilities and the occupation of part of southern Ukraine by Russia, the newsroom cannot obtain official confirmation of some of the statements made or independently verify them.  

 

“Secret Lists”

 

The Ukrainian authorities are not disclosing the lists of 120 civilians who were released during the 1,000-for-1,000 exchange. The only name known to journalists is Pavlo Zozuljak, a public activist and paintball coach from Kahovka.

Information about Zozuljak’s release was confirmed to “Public Kherson” by his sister Natalya Lukashenko. The Russian military first detained him in October 2022 for 12 days, and then captured him again in the summer of 2023. Russian investigators accused him of participating in the organization “Right Sector”.

Executive Director of the “Media Initiative for Human Rights” Tetyana Katrchenko told “Novine Pryazovye” more about Zozuljak.

According to her, he was held in basements, and then an occupation court sentenced him to two years in prison.

"He served his sentence on the territory of the Russian Federation. In February 2025, the term of this sentence had already expired. He was released from prison, but was not allowed to go to the territory of third countries or Ukraine. He was in special centers for migrants on the territory of the Russian Federation.

 

Since he did not have a Russian passport, Russian citizenship, and these documents in principle, he did not bring them with him when he was detained, he was not released in Russia, despite the fact that there was still a Russian decision on his deportation. Accordingly, there was no other way but to return him through an exchange,” Katrchenko explained.

The Kharkiv Human Rights Group calls Zozuljak a political prisoner.

“He is the only political prisoner out of these 120 exchanged,” says the director of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, Yevgeny Zakharov.

However, as explained to Noviny Priazovya by the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHL), civilian prisoners after the start of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation (February 2022) do not have the status of political prisoners.

“Ukrainian civilians captured by the occupiers, including Zozuljak, were detained in connection with the armed aggression against Ukraine,” the human rights organization emphasized.

 

“Targeted Policy of the Russian Federation”

 

Relatives of civilian hostages and organizations assisting them had high expectations before the 1,000-for-1,000 exchange, says Katrichenko. Immediately after the three-day exchange, several reports appeared in the Ukrainian media about those who were not on the lists of those released.

In particular, former political prisoner Stanislav Aseev noted that none of the civilians held by Russia for eight years had been released. Most of them are in the 32nd maximum-security colony in occupied Makiyevka.

The Kremlin’s Association of Relatives of Political Prisoners added that not a single civilian hostage from the list of human rights activists had been exchanged. There are also no Crimean Tatars among the released, said the wife of prisoner Tofik Abdulgaziev, Aliya Kurtametova.

Katrichenko explains: the absence of political prisoners among the released is a consequence of Russia’s targeted policy.

"It imposes those citizens who are not in the focus of return. But if Ukraine refuses to accept these citizens, Russia will continue to manipulate and say that Ukraine has given up its citizens. I think that later there would be some interviews on Russian TV channels and that the propaganda would work not only in Russia, but also in the territories of third countries," noted Katrychenko.

 

“We must receive and save all Ukrainians”

 

A spokesman for the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Petro Yatsenko, says: Ukrainian officials are currently studying who these 120 civilians are, whom Russia has agreed to hand over.

“These are different categories. As soon as we finish our analytical work, we will be able to provide some information or tell more about them. The work is currently underway. In any case, these are Ukrainians, most of them fell into Russian captivity, not captivity, but, in fact, illegally detained in the temporarily occupied territory, and they were held illegally and did not have the opportunity to move freely,” Yatsenko noted.

Petro Yatsenko states: society expected that the list of those released would include well-known activists and journalists, but this did not happen.

"Every exchange is unique, its preparation is different. This exchange was unique in that the preparation and return of such a large number of people took a very short time. Ukraine did not conduct negotiations regarding individuals returning, regarding units as such, because otherwise it was not realistic in such a short time". That is, the lists were handed over by the Russian side, and this was on the eve of the exchange. Ukraine took all those people who were handed over to us by the Russian side. Because we have to take them, we have to save them", emphasized Yatsenko.

 

 

How “I Want Mine” Works

 

According to Yatsenko, Ukrainian negotiators are constantly looking for mechanisms to achieve the release of civilian hostages. One of such options was the “I Want Mine” project.

“We have developed a special program, which in Russian is called “I Want Mine.” This is when those Ukrainian citizens who are collaborators, detained for treason, for aiding the enemy, have prison sentences, are in places of detention. They can write appropriate statements in order to be transferred to the Russian side, and in return we will get those civilians who are in Russian captivity. This is not an exchange, this is a mutual transfer,” Yatsenko said.

The Russian side has ignored this project for a long time, he says.

“It ignored those who helped it – collaborators. Now, finally, this process has moved forward and we are seeing the first results. We hope that thanks to this we will be able to return even more of our civilians and military personnel from Russian captivity,” explained the representative of the Coordination Headquarters.

 

According to the "I want mine" project, 70 of the 120 civilians handed over by Ukraine to Russia during the large exchange are convicted collaborators. The Russian Red Cross also claims that 20 Kursk Oblast residents were returned from Ukraine during the latest exchange.  

 

“Manipulation of the exchange process”

 

Both military personnel and civilians must now be checked after their release to determine whether they collaborated with the Russian occupiers. Because, as human rights activist Tatyana Katrichenko says, Russia has been trying to manipulate the exchange process for years.

“Even up until 2022, Russia always tried to include people in the exchanges that took place in 2017, 2019 and 2020, about which Ukrainian law enforcement agencies had questions.

Either the person was detained and tortured other detainees, civilians and prisoners of war while in custody. Or the person agreed to cooperate with Russia, had some unhindered movement in the occupied territory, plus or minus. Or the person was detained not in connection with the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, but was simply detained for a murder in Donetsk, for example, or for robbery there,” the human rights activist said.