‎Buried, mourned — Then the phone rang: An Ukrainian mother’s son returns from war after nearly four years ‎

‎For nearly four years, Nazar Daletskyi existed only in memory.
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‎His family believed he had been killed in action, his body buried in a village cemetery in western Ukraine.
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‎They had mourned him, said their goodbyes, and learned to live with the ache of loss.
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‎Then the phone rang.
‎Nazar was on the line — weak, exhausted, but alive. He had just been released from Russian captivity in a prisoner exchange.
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‎“My emotions were so strong,” his mother, Nataliya, told the BBC, still shaken by the shock. The family’s joy at that first call, captured on video, is raw and overwhelming.
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‎Her first questions were instinctive, urgent. Did he still have his arms? His legs? Was he whole?
‎“My golden child,” she cried. “I have been waiting for you for so long.”
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‎In the background, Nazar’s cousin, Roksolana, screamed and jumped with disbelief and joy. Nataliya could barely hold back her tears.
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‎“It was so strange,” she said. “My son had died. I buried him. And then I hear his voice. Can you imagine a mother’s emotions? Happiness. Great happiness.”
‎Nazar’s return feels almost miraculous in a country at war, where good news has become rare and precious.
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‎When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Nazar, then 42, returned immediately to the front. He had fought before, in 2014, and did not hesitate.
‎“He had no doubts,” Roksolana said. “He went straight away.”
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‎But in May that year, he went missing in action.
‎Months later, Nataliya received a brief call from a Russian-speaking man who claimed Nazar had been captured and would be fine. No details followed. No confirmation came. The family lived suspended between hope and fear.
‎A year later, hope collapsed.
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‎Nataliya was told a body had been identified in a morgue in south-eastern Ukraine using a DNA sample she had provided. The remains were badly burned, recovered from a destroyed bus. The records matched a missing soldier: Nazar.
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‎The family accepted the body, held a funeral, and grieved their dead.
‎Then, last September, came another shock.
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‎A Ukrainian soldier, newly released from Russian captivity, contacted the family. He said he had seen Nazar alive in prison.
‎It sounded impossible. But why would he lie?
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‎Still, without a call, without proof, they could not allow themselves to believe.
‎Until this week.
‎From Ukrainian soil, Nazar finally phoned home.
‎He had been gone for three years and nine months.
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‎Now, as the family waits for their long-delayed reunion, they are quietly undoing their mourning — asking for funeral posts to be removed from social media, taking his photograph down from a display of fallen heroes in their village.
‎An investigation has been launched to understand how such a devastating misidentification occurred. But for now, the family’s focus is elsewhere.
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‎Nataliya is cooking her son’s favourite meals, preparing for the moment he is strong enough to come home.
‎“I want more outcomes like ours,” Roksolana said. “More calls. More people returning.”
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‎Around 70,000 people are officially missing in Ukraine, most believed to be soldiers. Many will never be recovered. But others, like Nazar, may still be alive — waiting, unseen, unheard.
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‎For their families, his story is a fragile but powerful spark of hope.
‎“I wish all mothers, all children, could get a call like we did,” Nataliya said. “This happiness.”
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‎She is waiting now — not to mourn, but to hold her son again.
‎“I just want to hug him so tightly,” she said. “I love him very much.”