By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says ten Ukrainian civilians held prisoner for years by Russia arrived in Kyiv on Saturday after the mediation of the Vatican, including even priests and a representative of the Crimean Tatars.
They had been waiting for this moment for years, hoping and perhaps praying that the world had not forgotten them. Ten visibly tired, exhausted former prisoners arrived in Kyiv after the Vatican mediated their case.
Some had been captured years before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Among those freed was Nariman Dzhelyal, deputy head of the Mejlis, a representative body of Crimean Tatars that was relocated to Kyiv after Russia seized the peninsula in 2014.
He was taken from Crimea, where he lived despite the annexation, one year before the war.
The former prisoners, wrapped in blue and yellow flags, reunited with families in Kyiv and called those who couldn’t be there. For some, the separation had lasted many years.
Two Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests were also among those freed.
OCCUPIED CITY
Officials said that Russia released Ivan Levytskyi and Bohdan Heleta, both members of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, along with the eight others.
Priest Heleta was detained in 2022 in his church in the occupied city of Berdiansk in the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia.
He urged the world not to forget those who stayed behind. “There are a lot of our men,” he said. “And girls and women are there. They need help concrete help. They are waiting for this help. I also ask the world to react even more.”
Pope Francis, in an address on Saturday, called for the release of all prisoners in the war and thanked God for the liberation of the two priests.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement that he was grateful to everyone who helped and especially acknowledged what he called “the efforts of the Holy See in bringing these people home.”
Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War says 3,310 Ukrainians have already been released from Russian captivity since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
They also include 90 war prisoners released by each site earlier this week. The United Arab Emirates mediated the exchange of the 180 prisoners of war.
Yet, with many still behind bars, Zelenskyy has said he still hopes all prisoners can be exchanged as Europe’s bloodiest war since World War Two is now raging in its third year.
On Saturday, Pope Francis invited all present to pray that all prisoners return home. At the same time, he reflected “with pain” on the “brothers and sisters suffering because of war.”
“Let us think of all the people wounded or threatened by the fighting”, said Francis asking that God may “free them and sustain them in the struggle for peace”.
He has made clear that he is prepared to help mediate a lasting peace deal between Russia and Ukraine and earlier went out of his way to visit the Russian embassy in Rome to urge an end to the bloodshed.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed continued access to the abortion pill mifepristone by telehealth and mail, temporarily blocking a lower court ruling that would have restored in-person dispensing requirements and limited the drug’s reach into states with abortion restrictions.
President Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile shield could cost as much as $1.2 trillion over 20 years, according to a new Congressional Budget Office study that offers one of the most detailed public estimates yet of the ambitious national missile-defense project.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe held rare high-level talks with Cuban officials Thursday as protests erupted across Havana over the island’s worst rolling blackouts in decades, intensifying pressure on Cuba’s communist government amid President Donald Trump’s hard-line energy blockade.
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned President Donald Trump on Thursday that any mishandling of Taiwan could push the United States and China toward “clashes and even conflicts,” injecting a sharp geopolitical warning into a summit both leaders had hoped would steady relations between the world’s two largest economies.
The Pentagon has abruptly canceled the deployment of a U.S. armored brigade to Poland, marking another significant step in President Donald Trump’s effort to reduce America’s military footprint in Europe and shift greater responsibility for the continent’s defense onto NATO allies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and fellow Otzma Yehudit lawmaker Yitzhak Kroizer used Jerusalem Day to issue some of the strongest public calls yet from sitting Israeli officials for expanded Jewish control on the Temple Mount — and, in Kroizer’s case, the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple.
Iran’s ability to threaten Israel, America’s regional allies, and U.S. personnel across the Middle East has been dramatically reduced, according to Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, who told a Senate committee Thursday that Tehran’s military reach has been severely weakened after recent U.S. operations.