A Ukrainian mother has described the harrowing experience of grieving for her son after being told he was killed in battle by Russian forces, only to discover three years later that he was still alive.
The Disappearance
Nazar Daletskyi, 46, went missing in action while on the front line in Donbas in May 2022, just three months after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. His mother, Nataliya, 73, received a final phone call from her son, in which he told her their trench was surrounded. Contact was then lost, and an unknown caller later informed her that Nazar had been taken prisoner.
This began months of agonising searching through military records, social media, and Facebook groups for any information about her son. However, one year later, she was contacted by military officials with devastating news.
The Misidentification
Officials told Nataliya that Nazar's body had been found and identified, and would soon be returned to her in a body bag. She was advised against viewing the remains due to their badly charred state, and he was eventually given a family burial.
Nataliya was only weeks away from erecting a memorial stone when, in February, she received another call. This time, she was told that her son was alive and would be returning home as part of a prisoner swap with Russia.
The Reunion
In a viral video showing the first conversation between mother and son in three years, Nataliya is heard saying, "My God, how long I've waited for you, my precious child! All through that time I had been going to church, praying for a miracle and it was answered."
It soon transpired that Nazar, who came to be known as "the Resurrected One" among Ukrainians, had no idea his family believed him to be dead. He was completely baffled when, during a phone call, his mother asked if he was missing any limbs. Nataliya later told the Sunday Times that she had been trying to make sense of the mix-up, thinking "perhaps that his arm or leg had been sent back" and that "that was what had been identified."
Wider Issue
After the initial wave of relief subsided, Nataliya began to question why she had been told her son had died in the first place. She discovered she was far from alone. In a similar case, 34-year-old Bogdan Vovk was pronounced dead and buried last year in Humenets, western Ukraine, only to be later identified in Russian captivity. The body mistakenly believed to be his has since been exhumed.
Between 50,000 and 90,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the Russian invasion began. Issues with overflowing mortuaries due to high demand and outdated testing facilities are thought to be contributing to the problem of misidentified bodies. The Ukrainian government is pushing to implement mandatory dental X-rays and fingerprinting for all service members upon enlistment to ensure accurate post-mortem identification.
As for Nataliya, she has yet to receive an apology. Instead, officials initially demanded she return the 15 million hryvnia (£250,000) in compensation she had received, a portion of which she had already used to pay for her son's £3,000 memorial.
