Release: The Moment Ukrainian, Russian Prisoners Returned From Captivity

This image from February 4, 2023, image shows a newly released Ukrainian soldier holding an apple for the first time after a year of captivity. Video of the moment shows the man shaking his head in disbelief as he bites into the fruit.

The image is one of scores of photos of prisoner releases made over the past year, many taken at unspecified locations in Ukraine, showing the raw emotion of men and women being returned from the purgatory of imprisonment and into the arms of their loved ones.

A mother greets her son, a fighter for a Russia-backed separatist group that calls itself the Donetsk People’s Republic, who was released as part of a prisoner of war (POW) exchange with Ukrainian forces in Novoazovsk, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, on October 21, 2022.

A woman greets a man in military uniform after several female Ukrainian prisoners were released from Russian captivity in Zaporizhzhya on October 17, 2022.
 

Yevgeny, a soldier from the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, hugs his mother Lyudmila in a town in the Donetsk region of Ukraine after a prisoner exchange with Ukrainian forces on November 6, 2022.
 

Newly released Ukrainian POWs celebrate on Ukrainian-held territory on February 4, 2023.

Andy Huynh (in khaki T-shirt) and Alex Drueke (in background, wearing checkered shirt) hug loved ones after arriving in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 24, 2022. The U.S. military veterans volunteered to fight in Ukraine but were captured during an ambush and imprisoned by pro-Russia forces for 104 days before being released.

Friends of a freed pro-Russian soldier greet him in Amvrosiyivka, in the Russian-held area of the Donetsk region, on November 1, 2022. 
 

Ukrainian soldier Mykhaylo Dianov, whose image from inside Mariupol’s besieged Azovstal metalworks became an iconic photo from the war, flashes a victory sign as he is released as part of a prisoner exchange in the Chernihiv region on September 22, 2022.

A pro-Russia soldier hugs his brother after being released by Ukrainian forces along with other soldiers during a prisoner swap in the Donetsk region of Ukraine on November 6, 2022.
 

Ukrainian women prisoners look out of a bus window as they arrive to a crowd of family and supporters in Zaporizhzhya on October 16, 2022, after months in Russian captivity.

A pro-Russia fighter reunites with a family member in Ukraine’s Donetsk region after a prisoner swap on November 6, 2022.
 

A screen grab taken from Saudi state television shows British prisoner Shaun Pinner in Riyadh after being released from Russian captivity in September 2022. The Briton joined the Ukrainian military in 2018 and was captured during the Russian siege of Mariupol.

Fighters from the Russia-backed separatist groups that call themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics reunite with family members in Novoazovsk, east of Mariupol, on October 21, 2022.