Ukrainian soldier thought dead calls family

It was then that Nazar Daletskyi’s family discovered that their relative, thought to have been killed as a Ukrainian soldier in the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, was actually still alive.

They were told he died in September 2022, and a few months later they received a body they thought was his and buried him in his hometown of Lviv in western Ukraine.

He was released on Thursday as part of a prisoner exchange of soldiers and civilians between Ukraine and Russia after some of his comrades told his mother, Natalia, months ago that they believed he was still alive.