The Russians kidnapped them during the occupation of the Kyiv region. They met in captivity. And four years later they were returned to Ukraine together during an exchange. The story of Oleksiy Kovtun and Oleksandr Kuchay

Chronology of the captivity of Oleksandr Kuchay

21-year-old Oleksandr lived in the village of Prybirsk, 30 kilometers from Chornobyl. In March 2022, the village lost communication, leaving the residents isolated. There were rumors among the locals that communication could be received in the village of Orane, but there was a caveat — it was 8 kilometers away.

So Oleksandr and four other guys decided to take a risk and set off on foot through the forests. They reached the village, received communication, read the news, and returned home. A few kilometers from home, they were met by Russian soldiers.

They started checking the guysʼ phones and documents. They found a photo of columns of Russian military equipment on Oleksandrʼs phone — that was the reason they couldnʼt get away from them.

The Russians decided that the guys were a SRG. They talked among themselves and called their leader under the pseudonym "Tourist".

"A rude man came. They immediately put us face down on the ground, scared us with machine guns, and clicked the shutters," Oleksandr recalls.

Russian checkpoint in the village of Orane.

Then the boys were promised another check, after which they would be released. But instead, the Russians took them to the bridge over the Pripyat River (in Chornobyl), where by then, according to Oleksandr, they had set up something like a headquarters.

There, interrogations and beatings began. The Russian military asked who the boys worked for, who they had sent the photos to, and where the Ukrainian positions were located. Oleksandr and his friends had no answers to these questions.

After the interrogations, the boys were put in a car, blindfolded and handcuffed, and told that they were being taken to be shot. Eventually, they were brought to Belarus, where another check awaited them.

“We were received by a more or less adequate man. He looked at the phones and said, ʼWhy were you were brought here if you don’t have anything?’ Then he apologized, but added that he wouldn’t be able to let us go,” says Oleksandr. The boys stayed in Belarus for one night. In the morning, they were taken to Russia.

They all ended up in the pre-trial detention center No. 2 in the Bryansk region. They were greeted with a “reception” — a beating that newly arrived prisoners go through. After that, they were taken to a “bathhouse”: thirty seconds under cold water, and then — to a cell. The guys were divided into different cells.

“The first day I was alone. Then they brought another civilian to me. He had a very severe infection, he was kept in a refrigerated room in Hostomel. The next day he was taken to the hospital,” recalls Oleksandr.

Over time, there were already six people in the cell: four civilians and two military.

In the pre-trial detention center itself, Oleksandr was not explained why he was detained — he never heard the official accusation. In all the “documents” he was asked to sign as a witness in cases about “Ukraine’s war crimes against Russia”. The Russians did formally convict some prisoners from the cell.

Chronology of Oleksiy Kovtunʼs captivity

19-year-old Oleksiy lived with his family in Bucha. Russian soldiers set up a checkpoint 500 meters from their house. In early March, the Russians had already visited the family to check if Ukrainian soldiers were hiding there. When they were sure that they werenʼt, they moved on. On March 11, when Oleksiy was returning home past the same checkpoint, he was stopped.

"The reason was that I looked suspicious. They said I was wearing black clothes and that I belonged to some group," he recalls.

Next was a standard check of the phone. In it, the Russians found photos of broken Russian equipment and strikes. They undressed Oleksiy and began to examine his tattoos — many of them could be associated with military themes, although the guy did not serve. After this check, Oleksiy was told that he would not be going home anymore. They put a cap on his head, tied his hands and left him to "wait".

Later, another civilian, 26-year-old Artur, was brought to Oleksiy, who was returning from a friend’s with groceries. The reason was the same: he was taking pictures of the aftermath of the shelling. The boys were kept in the garage of one of the private houses all night.

“We were told that in the morning they would change their position and let us go,” Oleksiy recalls.

But in the morning they were brought somewhere again.

“There was a lot of equipment and voices around. They were cutting down trees and digging in,” says Oleksiy. Later, Oleksiy and Artur were thrown into a meter-long hole — just dug in the ground, about one and a half by two meters in size. Then the interrogations began. Oleksiy was made to kneel and asked where the Ukrainian positions were located. When he said he was a civilian, they beat him, strangled him with a belt, and simulated a shooting.

“They felt my elbow joint, then they took a wooden stick and hit me hard several times. My hand turned purple,” recalls Oleksiy. This was his first interrogation.

When Oleksiy was called a second time, he was told that an important contact had been found on his phone. He was beaten until it was discovered that it wasnʼt his phone — it belonged to Artur. After that, Oleksiy was taken back to the pit, and Artur was taken for questioning.

"At first I heard screams. Then they stopped. A few hours later, they threw him into the pit like a sack," Oleksiy recalls. According to him, Arturʼs condition was critical: multiple injuries, a bloody face, and convulsions.

"He was still alive at night, but no longer conscious. It was snowing. I nestle against him to warm [him] up a little," Oleksiy adds. In the morning, Artur died.

In the morning, people in black uniforms arrived. They looked like special forces, more “official”. They took Oleksiy and took him to the Hostomel airport, where other kidnapped civilians were being held. From there, he was transported to Belarus, and then straight to Russia. The final destination was Bryansk pre-trial detention center No. 2.

This is what Bryansk pre-trial detention center No. 2 looks like from the inside.

Like Oleksandr, Oleksiy was never formally charged. In all documents, he was listed only as a “witness”.

“The human rights commissioner came to us several times. He said that for Russians, civilians and military personnel are the same. We are all ʼpersons who hinder the SVOʼ. He even hinted that he considered me an adjuster [of fire] or a gunner,” Oleksiy says.

In the Bryansk pre-trial detention center, Oleksandr and Oleksiy never crossed paths. Both say that despite the constant control, beatings for trifles, and food that was often replaced by cold, unboiled water, this place seemed “loyal" only in one sense — in comparison to what awaited them further on in the Tula colony.

In the Tula colony, Oleksandr and Oleksiy met

On May 13, 2023, the boys were taken out of the Bryansk pre-trial detention center.

“The prisoners thought there would be an exchange of ʼall for all’. The prison was being emptied,” recalls Oleksandr. However, instead of an exchange, they were transferred to the Tula colony. There, Oleksandr and Oleksiy ended up in the same cell, together with 22 other prisoners, civilians and military. It was the largest cell in the colony.

Priests of the Russian Orthodox Church consecrate the territory of the Tula colony.

Making friends in captivity was forbidden. For the first year, the Russians wouldnʼt even let us exchange a few words. If they saw someone talking to someone through the video cameras or peepholes, they could take them out of the cell and beat them. So they had to constantly disguise themselves.

"There were blind spots that the camera couldnʼt see. We went there and talked for a while," explains Oleksiy.

And so, over time, the boys became friends.

“Lyosha was a bit spoiled. He didn’t appreciate a lot of things. That’s why I started raising him like an older brother,” says Oleksandr.

Oleksiy describes Oleksandr as a disciplined and tougher guy who really became an older brother to him. Together, they started playing sports — they even made a training schedule and tried not to break it.

“When it was really dark, I would do 400 push-ups, and it got easier,” says Oleksandr. Such training helped him develop his hand, which the Russians had injured during the first interrogations “in the pit”.

Over time, the Russians also came to terms with the fact that prisoners in one cell could not remain silent all the time. The main thing was not to do it loudly and not to laugh openly.

“Lyosha was wiser than the older men. Because when you laugh, you can at least turn your face away from the camera a little. And they did it as if specifically for the camera. After that, everyone was beaten,” adds Oleksandr.

As the boys say, in captivity they found many friends with whom they talked about their family, and every day they believed that the exchange would happen soon. The opportunity to write letters to their relatives also helped them to hold on.

However, as it turned out later, not all letters reached them. Replies from home were rare. Oleksiy well remembers the first letter from his mother. In it, she wrote: "I hope I have passed on my strength and zest for life to you with my genes."

Oleksandr received his first letter from his mother in 2025. He says that by that moment he had already mentally "buried everyone".

Oleksandr and his mother.

З особистого архіву героїв

Oleksiy and his mother.

З особистого архіву героїв

Conditions in the Tula colony

As the boys say, at first in the Tula colony they were not even allowed to sit down, they were constantly standing. At night, the prisoners could be woken up at any time, after which they had to stand until morning. The beatings became systematic.

"In the first month in Tula, I was beaten more than in 14 months in Bryansk. We were beaten like dogs," Oleksiy clarifies.

The colony guards were also embarrassed by the boysʼ tattoos: they were used for separate interrogations. The prisoners were forced to approach the cell door frame and shout something "for fun".

"We had to say something like ʼIʼm a faggotʼ. If we refused, they could take us out and beat us. And most of the boys agreed to do it out of fear,” says Oleksiy.

It all depended on the guards, but, as the guys specify, there were no "loyal" ones in the Tula colony. The guard with the call sign "Academic" was the one they remembered the most. Three times he almost killed the prisoners.

Once, instead of keeping his hands behind his back, one of the prisoners moved them in front of him. "Academic" saw this and immediately silently took him out of the cell.

"Literally five minutes pass, the cell opens, two people are called and they say: ʼtake him inʼ. We take him in, and he is in convulsions and unconscious," recalls Oleksandr.

Luckily, there was a military man with a medical education in the cell. He immediately began to provide assistance — performed artificial respiration and heart massage. The prisonerʼs heart stopped twice. In the end, he was saved. Later, it turned out that the man had a stroke after being hit on the back of the head with a baton.

In addition to various beating methods, the Russians used an electric shocker, sometimes they would fill a full bucket of water, into which the prisoners were immersed for several minutes.

“Once they beat me very badly, and then they put a wet rag on my face and poured water on me. You can’t breathe, you’re just suffocating,” Oleksandr recalls. The Russians also threatened sexual violence.

“Once they made me take off my pants. And they started poking me between my buttocks with a shovel handle,” Oleksiy shares.

Then, the colony was given an order not to touch the prisoners. One day, the colony’s headman summoned Oleksandr. He said that if he wanted everything to continue to be “calm” and for him to be exchanged more quickly, he should report the others. Oleksandr refused.

After that, as a “punishment”, he was transferred to another, double-occupancy cell. There he sat with a guy he had known before, but it was clear that his mental state had greatly deteriorated.

“He would just stand next to me every day and cry. Sometimes he would climb onto the bars on the windows and shout, ʼI am a Russian citizen, let me go.’ Another month or two, and I wouldn’t have been able to stand it,” says Oleksandr.

On March 10, 2026, human rights activists and representatives of the Russian prison service arrived at Tula Colony No. 5 with an inspection after prisoners complained about poor conditions, lack of treatment, and violations of their rights.

On April 15, the colony was visited again with a similar visit.

Oleksandr spent 6 months in this cell, right up until the exchange. During that time, Oleksandr completely lost faith in the exchange.

Exchange and return home

Before the exchange in the colony, everything usually happened according to one scenario — the guys were called into the office, a propagandist came to them and interviewed them. He asked the prisoners how they felt about the Russians, the Ukrainian authorities, and what they planned to do after their captivity. And a few days later, the guys were taken for an exchange. Thatʼs what happened to Oleksandr and Oleksiy.

On April 10, all those who were to be exchanged were taken out of the colony and into an empty room.

“They took me into that room, and right after me they took Sasha. And I immediately went to hug him. I always told him that if we were exchanged, we would go in the same group,” recalls Oleksiy.

On April 11, the friends finally arrived home. In addition to his parents and friends, Oleksiy was met by his cousin. At the beginning of the full-scale war, he was also taken prisoner by the Russians — he served in the Territorial Defense Forces of Kharkiv. He was exchanged in 2024, and is currently serving.

Oleksandr was met by his dearest person, his mother. Already at home, he learned the tragic news: in the tenth month of his captivity, his father died of a stroke.

Now the guys continue to communicate. They are having a hard time surviving the shelling, are surprised by the prices and how the world has changed in these four years. Despite this, everyone already has plans for the future.

After the exchange, Oleksiy is gradually returning to his usual life: he goes to the gym, reads books, meets with family and friends. He says he has missed too much over these years. Among his immediate plans is to go to his sister, who now lives in Germany. In the future, he wants to move to Kyiv, engage in creativity and, perhaps, master the profession of a tattoo artist.

Oleksandr is also making plans, but he doesnʼt plan far in advance. Right now, the main thing for him is to regain his health, spend more time with his mother, and wait for his two cousins, who were taken there with him, to be released from captivity. He is convinced that "there are no winners anymore" in the Russian-Ukrainian war.