Recently freed Ukrainian POW says he met Dmytro Khyliuk — RSF
UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk, who has been a prisoner in Russia since March 2022, is alive and still held in penal colony No. 7 in Pakino (Vladimir region, Russia), Reporters Without Borders learned from “Vlad” — a Ukrainian soldier (Marine Brigade No. 36) recently released from Russian prison, who last saw Dmytro in early May 2025.
“Vlad” told RSF in an interview that in early May 2025, shortly before his release, he accidentally met Dmytro Khyliuk in a prison corridor. The journalist appeared to be visiting a doctor. At that time, Khyliuk showed no visible signs of ill-treatment or injuries.
This soldier himself was taken prisoner in October 2022 and transferred to penal colony No. 7 in Pakino, Vladimir region. According to RSF, Dmytro was taken there a year later, in May 2023. In August of that year, the two men spent a day in the same cell.
Dmytro’s cell No. 8 was located in the third and final block, the “strictest one,” according to Vlad. He says that Ukrainian prisoners detained there, civilians and POWs alike, are regularly beaten and deprived of food, which confirms previous reports collected by RSF from several former prisoners. One of them, who shared a cell the journalist for a year, told RSF after his release that Dmytro Khyliuk had become unrecognizable compared to his pre-arrest photographs. He said the journalist weighed under 45 kilograms, and "Vlad" believes this estimate to still be accurate.
According to Vlad, the conditions improved somewhat in late 2024, following a visit to the Pakino prison by a delegation led by Tatyana Moskalkova, the Russian human rights commissioner. However, the situation grew worse again in 2025. Less food has been supplied, and access to health care remained very limited, especially with regard to scabies, which is a regular occurrence in the prison. It is believed that about 300 Ukrainians are still being held there.
“After more than three years of ordeal in Russian jails, Dmytro Khyliuk continues to suffer mistreatment and deprivation. While prisoner swaps between the two countries have been more frequent in recent months, it is incomprehensible that this journalist, in a state of chronic malnutrition, is still detained. We call for his immediate and unconditional release, before his situation worsens further and it is too late,” said Arnaud Froger, head of RSF’s investigations department.
Ukrainian journalist Stas Kozliuk, who co-authored the interview with “Vlad,” told the Institute of Mass Information that Dima was alive as of May and showed no outward signs of torture, beatings, or abuse. However, the conditions in the colony remain poor.
The imprisonment of UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk
UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk has been in Russian captivity since March 2022 as a civilian hostage. Russian soldiers kidnapped Dmytro Khyliuk on February 26, 2022, in the garden of his own house in Kozarovychi. He was first kept in the occupied Dymer, and then taken to a prison in Russia.
The Prosecutor General's Office has opened a case regarding the abduction of civilians on the territory of the Dymer hromada. The investigation considers journalist Dmytro Khylyuk and his father victims. The case was opened under Part 1 of Art. 438 of the Criminal Code (violation of the laws and customs of war).
Dmytro Khyliuk was likely imprisoned in the Vladimir region of Russia.
The Russian Ministry of Defense did not explicitly say that Dmytro Khyliuk was being kept in detention as a prisoner of war, but cited the Third Geneva Convention, which specifically concerns POW treatment, in response to his father's query.
On July 9, 2024 the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said that Ukraine had unofficial data on Dmytro Khyliuk's whereabouts.
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