During the exchange of prisoners of war between Ukraine and Russia on March 6, a resident of the Rivne region, junior sergeant Nikolai Patsiola, returned home. He is now in serious condition and undergoing rehabilitation.. Has the most problems with vision and legs.

His daughter Oksana Bakunets told Suspilna about the state of the military man. Rivne. In particular, she noted that they had not met in person yet, since there was quarantine in the hospital, so they only communicated by phone.

Oksana Bakunets noted that her father complained about health problems even before the war, but the commission declared him fit for service. " He was born in 1972. Before the war he complained about his legs, but the Military Military Commission recognized him as fit. After our release from captivity, we have not seen each other yet, we only talked on the phone. He said that his legs were very swollen and his vision had deteriorated,” the woman said..

Oksana Bakunets noted that on June 13 she received information that her father was missing in the village of Kalinovka, Bakhmut district, Donetsk region. Subsequently, she found on Russian resources that her father was alive and in captivity. After that, she applied to various institutions to change her father’s status to a prisoner of war: “I looked for evidence, sent it to various institutions that deal with missing persons. Subsequently, the military unit changed its status from missing to prisoner of war,” noted Oksana Bakunets.

The fact that Nikolai Patsiola is alive was confirmed by a Rivne resident released from captivity in March 2025, who recognized his brother-in-law.

Oksana Bakunets said that her father joined the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2023. The training took place in the village of Goshcha, after which he was sent to the Donetsk direction. On May 29, 2024, he went on a mission - and since then, contact with him has been lost. “I communicated with the commander all the time, because I had no contact with my dad, since he was in positions. On June 11, the commander wrote to me that they should change my dad,” said the soldier’s daughter.

As part of the exchange of prisoners of war between Ukraine and Russia, on March 6, another 300 Ukrainian defenders, as well as two Ukrainian civilians, returned home from Russian captivity.

Among them are military personnel from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard, and our border service.. Privates, sergeants, officers. They defended Ukraine in different directions - Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Kherson, Mariupol. Most of them have been in captivity for more than a year, some since 2022. The youngest released military man is 26 years old, the oldest is 60.

We also wrote how the defender of Mariupol, released from captivity, showed for whom he had to stand. The man was in captivity for four long years.