Celia Hatton

The mother says, Nazachik, my dear son, I've been waiting for you for so long.

My golden child, it's so great.

I love you so much.

Our Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford has been following the story.

This is an extraordinary story and a very, very rare moment of happiness and joy, I guess, in four years of all-out war here.

And it's the story of Nazar, who went to fight in 2022, but went missing in action.

And his family at first thought that he'd been captured and taken to Russia.

In fact, they even got a phone call from someone in Russia saying that they had...

the man and that he would be OK.

But then in 2023, the family, having given DNA for testing of any soldiers remains that would be found, they got a call and they were told that there was a body that had been identified in a morgue using DNA as the body of Nazar.

So Nazar's family buried Nazar in 2023.

And it was

Only in 2025 that they got word, in fact, that he was in prison in Russia and he was actually alive.

So after two years, after burying this man in the local village cemetery next to his father in the family plot,

Actually, a released soldier let them know that they believed that they'd met Nazar in prison, that he was alive, he was OK.

But there was absolutely no contact with him.

Russian prisons and the authorities in Russia do not give the Ukrainian families chance to talk to the prisoners of war.

So basically, it was only when this exchange happened that the family actually got to speak to Nazar for the first time, got confirmation he was alive.

And of course, that ultimate good news, the fact that he had come home alive.

to Ukraine.