Ukrainian defender meets son for first time after Russian captivity

His mother, Inna Kolbasova, shared an emotional video showing the first meeting between Volodymyr and his son Renat.

“After the longest road home, happiness arrives. And today it has your name. We waited for this moment for an incredibly long time. There were days of despair, sleepless nights, moments of pain and disbelief. There were tears, prayers and endless waiting. But today, all of that fades before one simple miracle: you are home,” she wrote.

Inna Kolbasova previously told Svoi City that the family is from Mariupol. Volodymyr decided to join the army at the age of 18 in 2019. After completing compulsory military service, he studied at a canine training center in Lviv Oblast to become a military dog handler.

After training, he returned to his native Mariupol and served in military unit 3057 of Ukraine’s National Guard, now the 12th Azov Brigade.

Volodymyr and his wife Alyona learned they were expecting a child one month before Russia’s full-scale invasion. He found out the baby’s sex while surrounded at Azovstal.

Pregnant Alyona spent several months hiding from constant Russian attacks in basements. Volodymyr wrote to her asking that their son be named Renat. He later sent a message saying he and others were going into captivity. The message was sent on May 17, 2022.

Renat was born on Sept. 7, 2022. Alyona miraculously managed to send Volodymyr a letter telling him about their son’s birth and included a photograph of the baby.

Volodymyr saw his son in person for the first time in early June 2026 after being released from Russian captivity.

Ukraine brought home 185 defenders on June 5, including servicemen from the Armed Forces, National Guard and State Border Guard Service. They had fought in Mariupol and at Azovstal, as well as in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Sumy, Kyiv and Kursk sectors.

The youngest defender released in Ukraine’s 75th prisoner exchange was 26, while the oldest was 62. Some of the 185 freed defenders had been held in Russian torture chambers since 2022.

Among those released was also a participant in the unique helicopter operation that created an air bridge to Azovstal.