Yevgeniy Uimanov, a Marine from the Mykolaiv region, has returned from Russian captivity
Yevhen Uimanov, a Marine from the Mykolaiv region who had been held captive since April 12, 2022, has returned from Russian captivity. He is one of three men from the same family who have been defending Ukraine since the very first days of the full-scale invasion.
“When they called me yesterday and told me that Zhenya had returned… We’d been waiting for this for so long that I was both overjoyed and in disbelief. I was overwhelmed with emotions that are hard to put into words,” she said.
The soldier’s mother admitted that she never doubted her son’s return. Just two days before receiving the news, she had written him a letter—one she had been putting off for some reason. Hanna Ivanivna speculates that she may have subconsciously sensed that an important event was approaching.
Before the full-scale invasion began, Yevgeniy Uimanov worked as a construction worker. However, on the very first day of the war, he went to the military recruitment office. The other men in the family did the same: his father, his sister’s husband, and his father-in-law.
Yevhen served in the 36th Separate Marine Brigade. He was taken prisoner on April 12, 2022.
“On February 28, he called home and said he was in the Donetsk region, near Volnovakha. Later, we found out that they were defending Mariupol. Then there was another call—on the night of March 17. To call us, he had to climb onto the roof of a high-rise building. That’s when the connection was lost,” the marine’s mother recalled.
After that, his family had no information about Yevhen’s fate for a long time.
The soldier’s sister, Lilia, constantly searched the internet for any news about her family. At the same time, her husband, Oleksandr Shepelya, and her father, Hennadiy Uimanov, went missing along with Yevhen. They served in the 79th Airborne Assault Brigade and were also defending the Donetsk region.
Later, Lilia came across a video featuring Ukrainian marines who had been taken prisoner near the Ilyich Mariupol Metallurgical Plant. In the footage, she recognized her brother by the backpack that Yevhen had taken with him to the war—a gift from their son.
Later, she found a photo online of a prisoner holding a sign with his last name and date of birth. Although he looked severely emaciated and was wearing dirty clothes, his family was able to confirm that it was Yevhen.
The family received their first message from Yevhenii in 2023. His relatives wrote him many letters, but they took seven to nine months to arrive, and some of the correspondence never reached him at all.
At first, the messages from the soldier were very brief. Later, he began to write more, describing how much he missed his loved ones and what he was missing.
“We received the first message from him back in 2023. We wrote him many letters, but they took 7–9 months to arrive, and not all of them made it. At first, his messages were very short, but lately he’s started writing a little more. He said he missed us very much and wanted chocolate and condensed milk. And in one of his most recent letters, he even wrote that he already has a business plan, and when he returns home, he’ll need my help to make it a reality,” said Anna Ivanivna.
As it turned out later, Anna Ivanivna’s husband and her son-in-law, Oleksandr Shepelya, were also taken prisoner by the Russians in April 2022.
Anna Ivanivna’s husband returned home during a prisoner exchange in June 2025. Her son-in-law, Oleksandr Shepelya, remains in captivity.
Meanwhile, the fate of another relative—Yevgeny’s father-in-law, Arkady—remains unknown. He is considered missing in action.
Yevhen Uimanov’s return was long-awaited news for the family, who had been waiting for years for his release and continue to hope for the return of other relatives.
His mother, Hanna Ivanivna, informed a Ukrinform correspondent of the soldier’s return.
During the prisoner exchange on October 23, 35 servicemen from the Azov Special Forces Unit returned home.
As part of the negotiation process on October 23, Ukraine repatriated 270 people from Russian captivity. Among them were 261 military personnel and nine civilians. The exchange was carried out on the orders of the President of Ukraine with the participation of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
Journalist Dmytro Khilyuk, who was released from Russian captivity, reported that during the exchange on October 23, soldier Oleksandr Shcherbakov, with whom they had shared a cell, returned home.
On October 23, Ukraine returned seven more civilians from the occupied territories to government-controlled territory. Among them were a 90-year-old woman with limited mobility, a 50-year-old Ukrainian woman with serious health conditions, as well as a young woman and her child.
