Home after four years in captivity: Azov fighter from Drohobych whom Russia sentenced to 29 years

“Another happiest piece of news”

In the latest prisoner exchange, Taras Zvarychuk, a resident of Drohobych who defended Ukraine in the Azov regiment, returned home. Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv Regional Military Administration, announced it on Telegram, Ukrinform reports. “Another happiest piece of news for Lviv region,” he wrote.

A volunteer since 2014

According to Drohobych city council, Taras Zvarychuk was born in Drohobych on 11 May 1994. He was among the first volunteers to defend the country right after the Revolution of Dignity and fought in the ranks of Azov.

He was captured on 16 May 2022, in the days when Mariupol’s defenders were leaving the Azovstal plant on the command’s orders. In total he spent more than four years in captivity, local outlet Drohobych.City notes.

A “terrorism” sentence

A Russian court sentenced Zvarychuk to 25 years in prison, later increased to 29 years, allegedly for terrorism. “Taras tried for a long time to defend the truth and filed an appeal, but to no avail,” the city council said.

He was held in pre-trial detention centres in Rostov, Samara and later Novosibirsk. Ukraine and international human rights advocates consider such “sentences” against Ukrainian soldiers, who under international humanitarian law have prisoner-of-war status, unlawful: combatants cannot be tried merely for taking part in hostilities.

“Thanks to long efforts, the soldier was freed from captivity and returned to his native land. He is now undergoing rehabilitation together with other returned soldiers. His parents and two brothers are waiting for the Hero’s return,” the council added.

A 270-for-270 exchange

Taras returned in the 23 October exchange, conducted in a 270-for-270 format. As BBC News Ukrainian reported, those returned included National Guard members, among them Azov fighters, border guards, territorial defence troops, Navy, Land Forces and Air Assault personnel, members of the State Special Transport Service and nine civilians. Most had been held since 2022, many of them defenders of Mariupol.

The youngest freed was 24 and the oldest 63, ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said. They included 38 officers, nine seriously ill people and five survivors of the Russian attack on Olenivka.

Lubinets called the exchange historic because it brought back the largest number of soldiers convicted by Russia: 86 convicted and one defender who was being prosecuted. Taras Zvarychuk’s story is one of those 86.

On the same day, Lubinets said, a mutual return of civilians also took place: seven Ukrainian citizens were brought back from occupied territories, including a 90-year-old woman with limited mobility, a 50-year-old woman with serious illnesses and a young woman with her child who had been unable to leave occupied Mariupol since the invasion began. Tellingly, during the exchange Russia attacked Chernihiv, near where it took place, with jet-powered Shahed drones, killing one person and injuring 16.

The first exchange this autumn

According to the BBC, it was the first exchange of autumn 2026; previous ones took place in the summer: 19 August (103 for 103), 24 August (ten more soldiers), 26 June (160 for 160) and 5 June. Meanwhile thousands of Ukrainians remain in Russian captivity, and families keep waiting.

Bringing back convicted soldiers is a particularly difficult part of negotiations: Russia uses show trials as a means of pressure, and each such exchange requires long work by Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.