Families of Ukraine’s missing fear peace will not bring them home

Tatyana Popovytch had contacted all the agencies she could think. She had traveled every step that her son Vladislav could have taken after the Russians opened the fire of his car, letting him flee with a ball in the leg. She had looked in mass pits, examined photos of the dead, looked at exhumations. And after a month, she didn’t know more than when she started.

Then a stranger called.

Serhii had just been released from a Russian prison in Kursk. During the morning call, prisoners could not see each other, but they could hear that each person declares their full name and their native village. Serhii memorized as many names and places as he could – 10 in total, he said – and on May 9, 2022, he called Tatyana to say that he had heard the voice of his son.

Like Vladislav, Serhii was a captured civilian from Bucha at the start of the war, when hundreds of civilians were taken to this region. Vladislav was 29 years old at the time. Now 32 years old, he is still in Kursk prison. Serhii could not explain to Tatyana why he had been released and that Vladislav had not done so. Tatyana was just happy to learn that her son was alive. “I was so delighted to have lost the stutter that I had since he was taken,” she said.

Three years later, by the day, Tatyana was sitting in a coffee in Bucha, not far from the place where his son was removed, looking at the rare pruments that he was still alive: two letters of him – short and heated texts, written in Russian, telling him that he was well nourished and well maintained. Each letter had taken about three months to reach Tatyana, which makes it difficult for her to feel very connected to her son at any time.

“My son is very soft and sensitive,” she said, with the painful expression of a parent who cannot protect their child. She looked at photos of Bal Vlad’s Dance of Bal – a hobby from a young age. “It is so vulnerable,” she said. “I fear that he will lose his mental health there.”

According to Ukrainian authorities, nearly 16,000 Ukrainian civilians are still captive in Russian prisons after being removed by the invasive army – not to mention the more than 20,000 Ukrainian children estimated at Russia.

There are now more and more fears among their thousands of dear beings, in the midst of apparent progress towards peace talks, that they could be forgotten or lost in the process. And these fears seem justified.

Under the Geneva Convention, there is a mechanism recognized for exchanging prisoners of war, but no mechanism of this type exists for the return of captured civilians, even leaving the best Ukrainian and international officials in search of an explanation on the way in which they could be brought home.

“When I attend official meetings, at the mediator’s office or elsewhere, no one talks about bringing civilians back in the event of a ceasefire,” said Yulia Hripun, 23, whose father was kidnapped very early in the war of a village just west of Kyiv.

In the weeks after learning of her father’s captivity, Yulia used Facebook to contact another daughter of an imprisoned Ukrainian and the couple launched a new organization to campaign for the whole liberation of civilians.

The group met representatives of the UN, the European Parliament, governments of several EU countries and the United States Embassy in Ukraine.

“We spoke with them, but that was summed up with the fact that they do not honestly understand what will happen,” said Yulia, to meet the Americans.

“The only thing they said is that Trump is interested in the question of expelled children and that perhaps civilians could somehow integrate into this category. But they are in fact different categories that cannot be combined.”

Concern for Yulia and others close to captured civilians, the best Ukrainian officials do not pretend to have a stronger idea.

“I do not see the actual and effective approach to return civil prisoners to Ukraine,” said Dmytro Lubinets, the country’s human rights mediator. “We have no legal basis or the mechanisms to return them,” he said frankly.

Russia further complicates the problem of Russia against some of the people captured during the invasion.

“And when you see these accusations, these are often” actions against the special military operation “,” said Lubinets. “Can you imagine opening an investigation against a Ukrainian civilian for having simply resisted the invasive Russian army, on Ukrainian territory?”

In May, Russia released 120 civilian detainees as part of a greater exchange of prisoners of war, and other exchanges are expected. But the figures are still in terms of smaller on the tens of thousands of people who would have been seized – adults and children. And great uncertainty remains on the way to a negotiated peace.

“You want to believe that he is coming home, at the same time as you cannot believe it,” said Petro Sereda, 61, Irpin bus driver near kyiv, whose artym son was taken prisoner more than three years ago. “It’s extremely difficult.”

Petro and his wife live in temporary housing in style of shipping contaition in Irpin, because their house was destroyed in the invasion. Even three years later, whenever the phone rings, Petro thinks it could be artym.

“It is one thing to have a letter saying that he is alive, but to hear his voice … It would be joy that he is really alive.”

Families live like that, in desperate hope. The dream is that they can see their loved ones again. It is not a simple dream, however – some fear that Russian captivity has caused lasting damage.

Tatyana, whose son of the Vladislav Bal room was removed from Bucha, said that she shivered the Russian language now “because it is the language in which my son is tortured”.

There is also the question of what is missed. During the detention of Vladislav, his father died unexpectedly at only 50 years old, carrying a guilt well that he could not protect his son.

All Tatyana can do is mentally preparing the return of Vladislav. She expected “feeling all possible emotions,” she said. “That’s all I think. All the time, every day.”

Daria Mitiuk contributed to this report. Joel Gunter photographs