In 2023, what were thought to be Nazar Daletskyi’s remains were buried in his home village and his mother, Nataliia, visited the grave every week. Three years later, he spoke to her on the phone
Nazar Daletskyi was declared dead in May 2023. The DNA match left no room for doubt, officials told his mother, Nataliia. A Ukrainian soldier who volunteered for the front in the early weeks of the war, Nazar had become one more casualty of Russia’s invasion.
Nazar’s remains were laid to rest in the cemetery of his home village. In the months after the funeral, Nataliia visited the grave at least once a week, at first to cry and later to stand in quiet contemplation, remembering her only son.
A few weeks ago, almost three years after the funeral, Nazar was freed from a Russian jail as part of a prisoner exchange. Soon after stepping off the bus and into Ukrainian territory, he was handed a mobile phone.
The moment Nataliia heard her son’s voice again was captured by a village official, in a grainy mobile-phone video of raw emotional power. “My God, how long I’ve waited for you, my precious child,” she said, wailing with a mix of shock and joy. “Do you have arms, legs; is everything in place?”
