Marine from Zhytomyr region returns from captivity

Among the 205 servicemen released from captivity on May 15 is Andrii Khmilovskyi, a resident of the village of Krasnohirka in the Zhytomyr region, a defender of Mariupol, and a marine who spent four years in captivity.

His grandmother, Halyna Khmilovska, reported this to a Ukrinform correspondent.

“Andrii was born on December 12, 1996, in Krasnohirka. His father died, and his mother was stripped of her parental rights, so I took Andrii, his brother, and his sister in and raised them. The children attended the local school, then went off to study. Andrii graduated from the Zhytomyr Automobile and Road College, found a girlfriend, and they had a son,” the woman noted.

Andrii Khmilovskyi

The family lived in the village of Reia, and Andrii worked at a construction supply store in Zhytomyr. Shortly before the full-scale war, he signed a contract with the 36th Separate Marine Brigade named after Rear Admiral Mykhailo Bilynskyi.

“My grandson was taken prisoner on April 12, 2022, in Mariupol. We only saw a video of them leaving Mariupol and recognized him that way. I had no other information about him. While he was there, draft notices even came to our home because no one knew what had happened to him. I lived, putting my hope in God,” the grandmother added.

Halyna Khmilovska recounted that last year, the village head informed her that a letter had arrived confirming Andrii’s captivity. A soldier who had recently been released told her that her grandson was alive and being held captive. The grandmother knows that Andrii was being held on Russian territory.

Her grandchildren informed Halyna Khmilovska that the soldier had returned to Ukraine during the exchange.

Read also: SSU releases exclusive footage of today’s prisoner exchange

As reported by Ukrinform, 205 Ukrainians returned from Russian captivity as part of the first phase of the 1,000-for-1,000 exchange.