The Deputy Speaker of the Mejlis, Nariman Dzhelal, was returned from Russian captivity

Ukraine returned ten civilians from Russian captivity. Among them is the deputy head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Nariman Dzhelal, captured in Crimea in 2021.

This was announced by President Volodymyr Zelenskyi.

Civilians who had been in captivity since 2017-2018 also returned from captivity. These are Olena Pekh and Valery Matyushenko, priests of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, captured in Berdyansk for resisting the Russians, Bohdan Geleta and Ivan Levytskyi, as well as five civilians who were captured on the territory of Belarus: Mykola Shvets, Natalia Zakharenko, Pavlo Kuprienko, Lyudmila Goncharenko and Kateryna Bryukhanova.

The President noted the Vaticanʼs efforts to return Ukrainian civilians from Russian captivity.

Nariman Dzhelal is a Ukrainian Crimean Tatar politician who became the deputy chairman of the Mejlis after the election of Refat Chubarov. Dzhelal headed the information and analytical division. In September 2021, Russian security forces searched his home and took him away, and then the "court" arrested Dzhelal for two months on suspicion of "sabotage." Subsequently, the FSB reclassified the case to a more serious charge. On September 21, 2021 , the occupation court of Crimea sentenced Nariman Dzhelal to 17 years in prison. At that time, the Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets called the sentences revenge of the Russian Federation for the resistance to the occupation of the lands of the Crimean Tatar people and for Dzhelalʼs participation in the "Crimean Platform".

While in captivity, the political prisoner wrote letters to the Ukrainian people in which he expressed his faith in liberation and victory.

Olena Pekh was held hostage in Russia for the sixth year, she was sentenced to 13 years for her pro-Ukrainian position. Pro-Russian militants detained her in the temporarily occupied territory of the Donetsk region. Last year, the human rights commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Dmytro Lubinets , reported that the condition of the woman due to torture and long years of imprisonment was "extremely critical."

Valery Matyushenko was held hostage by Russia for seven years. He was captured in the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk region in July 2017 for his pro-Ukrainian position. The man was tortured, as a result of which he received a disability, and then he was sentenced to 10 years for "espionage".

On one day, November 16, 2022, in the temporarily occupied Berdyansk, the Russians captured the priests of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , Bohdan Geleta and Ivan Levytskyi. Both prayed for peace. Father and head of the UGCC His Beatitude Svyatoslav reported that he had information about the torture of priests.