A sailor from Nizhny Novgorod hugged his family for the first time in three years after being held in Ukrainian captivity.

      October 15, 2025, 10:23 Society

      Russian seafarer Denis Yeletin from the Nizhny Novgorod region, who spent three years in Ukrainian captivity, met his family for the first time in a long while. The meeting took place at the House of Human Rights and, according to Russia’s human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova, was a truly moving moment. She reported this on her Telegram channel.

      Yeletin, who worked as a senior officer on a ship flying the Liberian flag, was detained by the Security Service of Ukraine in July 2022 while the vessel was in the port of Odesa. He was the only Russian citizen on board. The Ukrainian side accused him of "public calls to change the borders of Ukraine." According to Moskalkova, his words were treated as a crime, and he endured three years of imprisonment and complete isolation from his family.

      From the moment of Yeletin's detention, the case was under the personal supervision of Tatyana Moskalkova. She noted that the release was made possible thanks to the coordinated work of the Russian Presidential Administration, the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Defense, and the human rights commissioner in the Nizhny Novgorod region, Oksana Kislitsyna.

      Moskalkova emphasized that every meeting, every document, and every phone call were aimed at bringing Denis home not as "a surname on a list," but as a living person — a father, son, and husband.

      "Today, for the first time in three years, he embraced his family. I stood aside, watching how his wife could not take her eyes off him, how his son, timid at first, and then — with desperate childlike courage — rushed to his dad," she wrote.

      She also assured that she will do everything possible to increase such meetings and reduce separations.

      Earlier it was reported that four residents of the Nizhny Novgorod region, including Denis Yeletin, were released from Ukrainian captivity on October 2.

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