After three and a half years of Russian captivity, the border guard Vitaly Girenko returned home to Ukraine. A resident of the city of Izmail Odessa region is the last of the defenders of the island of Zmein, who will also finally be able to see his relatives.

And his little son will be able to see his father live for the first time, and not in the photo. The news was shared by the community "

\! The border guard of the island of Achilles is Vitaly Girenko at home, ”the post says.

In February 2025, in the commentary " She and the mother of a prisoner of war talked about that day when their native was in captivity, and when they had the last time they talked with him.

" I think he is very, very bad there, ”Alena said.

According to her, when her husband was captured, she was in the seventh month of pregnancy. Therefore, their son Dmitry knew his father only from photographs.

" And on February 26, we learned from the Russian media that our guys were captured and they are all alive. They were transported to Sevastopol. I saw my husband on TV that he was alive. Hands, legs, all in place, ”the woman recalled.

The long -awaited exchange for this and other Ukrainian families took place on the evening of July 23. He became the ninth stage of the return of prisoners in the framework of Ukrainian-Russian agreements in Istanbul of June 2.

The GPSU reported that, in addition to the last of the defenders of the island of Zmein, the warriors who had been held captive after the defense of Mariupol returned home. As well as those who fought in the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, Lugansk, Kherson, Kharkov, Sumy and Chernihiv directions.

" We are waiting for everyone, ”the department noted.

President Vladimir Zelensky specified that seriously ill -wounded defenders returned home. According to him, for all stages of this exchange, more than 1000 Ukrainian soldiers were released from Russian captivity.

Russian troops captured the island of Zmein on the day of a full -scale invasion of February 24, 2022. Part of the Ukrainian warriors who defended him were captured. Among them were border guards and marine infantrymen.

The defense of the island was noted by the world -famous call " So Ukrainian border guards, refusing to surrender to the Russian military ship, answered with this phrase, which quickly became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance. Its author is a soldier novel from Zolotonosha, in the Cherkasy region.

The forces of the defense of Ukraine liberated the snake four months later, on June 30, 2022.

As of June of that year, according to official figures, 75 defenders of the island were in captivity. Subsequently, some of them were released as part of exchanges, for example, at the beginning of April 2023, and 40 defenders were released.

On June 2, during negotiations in Istanbul, representatives of Ukraine and Russia agreed to exchange in a format of 1000 by 1000 - for the second time, such an amount for the history of such negotiations. Additionally, the parties agreed to exchange another 200 for 200 prisoners of war, in addition, to repatriate 6,000 bodies of the dead military on each side.

After the aggressor country accused Kyiv allegedly of transferring the exchange for an indefinite period. At the same time, Russian propaganda distributed news about the "

The first exchange of prisoners in the framework of Istanbul agreements took place on June 9 - they returned the Ukrainian warriors under the age of 25 years old. The next day they exchanged seriously wounded and seriously ill prisoners of war.

The following stages of exchanges 12, 14, 19 and 20. In all cases, they did not call the number of security reasons: they noted that the data would be voiced at the end of the entire exchange.

In addition, on June 11, the repatriation of 1212 bodies of the fallen Ukrainian troops took place. In the future, according to the results of repatriation events from Russia to Ukraine, they returned: June 13 - the bodies of 1,200 fallen Ukrainian citizens, June 14 - 1,200 dead Ukrainians, including military personnel, June 15 - 1200 bodies, June 16 - 1245 bodies of the dead. The coordination headquarters said that the repatriation part of Istanbul agreements was completed: in total, 6057 bodies were returned as part of these agreements.

According to the results of repatriation measures on July 17, the bodies of 1000 dead were returned to Ukraine to Ukraine.

On June 26, Ukraine and Russia held the next stage of the exchange of prisoners of war: warriors of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, National Guard, border guards, most of whom were captured since the beginning of a full -scale war returned home.

On July 4, a group of wounded and seriously ill defenders, as well as the younger 25 years, was returned from Russian captivity.. Among them are fighters, whom the aggressor condemned the long period of imprisonment, as well as those who were considered missing.