Released soldier gives news of captive UNIAN correspondent Khyliuk

Dmytro Khyliuk. Photo by vechirniy.kyiv.ua

UNIAN correspondent Dmytro Khilyuk, who was kidnapped by the Russian troops over two years ago, sends his regards to his parents and hopes to be released. His words were relayed by one of the Ukrainian soldiers released from captivity, who shared a prison cell with the journalist, reports UNIAN.

"I spent 11 months essentially sitting side by side with Khyliuk in the same cell. Dmytro Khilyuk is with the agency UNIAN. He sends his best wishes to his parents and brother and says that he is alive. He hopes that he will be released," the man said.

Upon learning this, Khyliuk's mother Halyna said in a comment to UNIAN that she received "the best news in the world."

"My feelings are mixed: unspeakable joy, and sadness, and anxiety, and shock. You can see it all on my face. I spend two years and three months knowing nothing about my child. And today we learned some piece of information. A tiny one. Not specific at all. But even that gives my heart a little joy," said the woman.

The detention of UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk

On July 13, RSF reported that Dmytro Khyliuk, UNIAN journalist abducted by Russian soldiers in March 2022, is possibly in one of the prisons in the Vladimir region of Russia.

UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk has been in Russian captivity since March 2022 as a civilian hostage. Such prisoners should be released separately from POW swaps, but the Russians are not doing this.

In May 2023, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said that he was personally monitoring the issue UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk's release from Russian captivity.

The Prosecutor General's Office has opened a case regarding the abduction of civilians on the territory of the Dymer hromada. The investigation considers journalist Dmytro Khylyuk and his father victims. The case was opened under Part 1 of Art. 438 of the Criminal Code (violation of the laws and customs of war).

Russian soldiers kidnapped Dmytro Khyliuk on February 26, 2022, in the garden of his own house in Kozarovychi. He was first kept in the occupied Dymer, and then taken to a prison in Russia.

In December 2023, Dmytro Hylyuk was awarded by the Platform of European Memory and Conscience.

The Russian Ministry of Defense does not explicitly say that the UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk is being kept in detention as a prisoner of war, but cites the Third Geneva Convention, which specifically concerns POW treatment, in response to his father's request.