After three and a half years in captivity, former ATO veteran Andriy Harasymenko returned home
Source: MIPL
Authors: Yana Ilkiv, Yulia Abibok
On October 2, 2025, another prisoner exchange took place between Ukraine and Russia. A total of 205 people returned home, including 20 Ukrainian civilians who had been unlawfully detained by the Russians during the first months of the full-scale invasion. One of them is Andriy Harasymenko, a former ATO veteran from the Chernihiv region. He was held captive for three and a half years. During that time, he was transferred through at least five different detention facilities.
Andriy Harasymenko lived with his family in the village of Novoukrainsk in the Chernihiv region. He had previously served in the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and participated in the ATO in 2016–2017. Since 2018, he had been living a civilian life, working as a foreman and raising his two daughters. On March 25, 2022, he was abducted by Russian military personnel.
On the eve of the full-scale invasion, Andriy received a draft notice and the next day, February 24, went to the local military registration and enlistment office. However, due to a kidney condition, he was not drafted into the military. That same day, he went to a hospital in Chernihiv. Andriy was scheduled for surgery on February 25 to remove kidney stones, but the occupation began, and it became impossible to reach Chernihiv. For almost the entire month, the family hid in the cellar, as fighting for Chernihiv raged nearby and the sound of shell explosions echoed through the air.
On the day of Andriy’s abduction, March 25, the family was in the bathhouse, which stood separate from the main house. His wife, Natalia Garasymenko, recalls that her mother had come to visit her granddaughter that day, and the family had gathered around the table for lunch. Suddenly, they heard a rumbling sound and the sound of footsteps. The door swung open, and armed men in uniform entered the room. One of them reported over the radio: “There’s a family here.”
“They ordered everyone to come out. There were a lot of people; the area around the pond was completely surrounded. There was military equipment in the yard, too. They started running around the yard,” Natalia said in an interview with the MIPL.
According to Natalia, it looked as if they had come to arrest some well-known terrorist or military commander. The family was separated and interrogated. The interrogation lasted about an hour, while the Russians searched the house: they took phones, a tablet, a computer’s system unit, flash drives, flashlights, and a router. Then they left, taking Andriy with them.
At first, Andriy was held in the village of Vyshneve. The main detention sites there were the basement of the school in the center of the village and a local factory. Later, all traces of him disappeared for a time.
The family received the first information about Andriy’s whereabouts in May 2022 from his former cellmate at Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Kursk. The man said that in early April of that year, after passing through filtration camps near Kursk, Garasymenko entered his cell. He had been severely beaten.
In July 2022, the family received official confirmation that Andriy was being held captive. After that, there was a long period of silence, and the family received no news about him.
In late December, a man returned from captivity and reported that he had seen Garasymenko at Tula Penal Colony No. 1 in the city of Donskoy. This was later confirmed by another witness. Some time later, it became known that Harasymenko had been transferred to the “Polyana” penal colony in the Republic of Mordovia.
Authors: Yana Ilkiv, Yulia Abibok
On October 2, 2025, another prisoner exchange took place between Ukraine and Russia. A total of 205 people returned home, including 20 Ukrainian civilians who had been unlawfully detained by the Russians during the first months of the full-scale invasion. One of them is Andriy Harasymenko, a former ATO veteran from the Chernihiv region. He was held captive for three and a half years. During that time, he was transferred through at least five different detention facilities.
Andriy Harasymenko lived with his family in the village of Novoukrainsk in the Chernihiv region. He had previously served in the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and participated in the ATO in 2016–2017. Since 2018, he had been living a civilian life, working as a foreman and raising his two daughters. On March 25, 2022, he was abducted by Russian military personnel.
On the eve of the full-scale invasion, Andriy received a draft notice and the next day, February 24, went to the local military registration and enlistment office. However, due to a kidney condition, he was not drafted into the military. That same day, he went to a hospital in Chernihiv. Andriy was scheduled for surgery on February 25 to remove kidney stones, but the occupation began, and it became impossible to reach Chernihiv. For almost the entire month, the family hid in the cellar, as fighting for Chernihiv raged nearby and the sound of shell explosions echoed through the air.
On the day of Andriy’s abduction, March 25, the family was in the bathhouse, which stood separate from the main house. His wife, Natalia Garasymenko, recalls that her mother had come to visit her granddaughter that day, and the family had gathered around the table for lunch. Suddenly, they heard a rumbling sound and the sound of footsteps. The door swung open, and armed men in uniform entered the room. One of them reported over the radio: “There’s a family here.”
“They ordered everyone to come out. There were a lot of people; the area around the pond was completely surrounded. There was military equipment in the yard, too. They started running around the yard,” Natalia said in an interview with the MIPL.
According to Natalia, it looked as if they had come to arrest some well-known terrorist or military commander. The family was separated and interrogated. The interrogation lasted about an hour, while the Russians searched the house: they took phones, a tablet, a computer’s system unit, flash drives, flashlights, and a router. Then they left, taking Andriy with them.
At first, Andriy was held in the village of Vyshneve. The main detention sites there were the basement of the school in the center of the village and a local factory. Later, all traces of him disappeared for a time.
The family received the first information about Andriy’s whereabouts in May 2022 from his former cellmate at Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Kursk. The man said that in early April of that year, after passing through filtration camps near Kursk, Garasymenko entered his cell. He had been severely beaten.
In July 2022, the family received official confirmation that Andriy was being held captive. After that, there was a long period of silence, and the family received no news about him.
In late December, a man returned from captivity and reported that he had seen Garasymenko at Tula Penal Colony No. 1 in the city of Donskoy. This was later confirmed by another witness. Some time later, it became known that Harasymenko had been transferred to the “Polyana” penal colony in the Republic of Mordovia.
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