Sixty-four Ukrainian prisoners of war, including one U.S. Air Force veteran, were released Wednesday in a Moscow-Kyiv prisoner swap.
Suedi Murekezi, a former Air Force soldier from Minnesota, has lived in Ukraine since 2018. He was detained in June by Russian forces in the formerly occupied city of Kherson and was falsely accused of involvement in pro-Ukrainian protests.
Murekezi told ABC News that he was beaten and tortured with electric shocks in a basement for weeks following his arrests.
Murekezi was accused of being a member of the CIA and spent three months in a Donetsk city prison before he was released by the Russians. Without his U.S. passport, he was unable to leave the Russian-controlled territory of Donetsk saying he felt “trapped.”
Murekezi was released among 64 Ukrainian soldiers who fought in Donetsk and Luhansk, according to the Ukrainian President’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak. The bodies of four Ukrainian soldiers who were killed in action were also received in the swap.
A tweet Wednesday from Yermak read: “64 soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who fought in the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, are going home. Also, we managed to free a US citizen who helped our people – Suedi Murekezi. And we got home bodies of four KIAs.”
Another POWs swap. 64 soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who fought in the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, are going home.
Also, we managed to free a US citizen who helped our people – Suedi Murekezi. And we got home bodies of four KIAs. pic.twitter.com/qKqbGpwV6x
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) December 14, 2022
In another tweet, Yermak thanked the Coordinating Headquarters while saying, “there is still a lot of work ahead. Got to go on.”
Two other U.S. veterans, Alexander John-Robert Drueke and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, were captured by the Russian military while fighting alongside Ukraine in June but were released in a September prisoner exchange. Drueke and Huynh said they “prayed for death” while being tortured by Russian soldiers during their 105 days of imprisonment.
Last month, the European Union declared Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism,” noting over 50,000 war crimes committed against Ukrainians by the Russian military.
The exchange comes just days after the U.S.-Russian prisoner swap, which freed WNBA star Brittney Griner for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
