The Prayer Breakfast Was Attended by Christian Priests Recently Released from Russian Captivity

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The Prayer Breakfast in Kyiv was attended by the priests of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Bohdan Heleta and Ivan Levitsky, who had been released from Russian captivity the day before.

They preached the Word of God in Berdyansk, in the parish of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. On November 16, 2022, the occupiers abducted them and kept them in captivity.

"Thanks to the efforts of our team and the mediation of the Holy See, for which I am especially grateful, we were able to bring them back to freedom. We believed it was possible. We worked for it," Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, said in his address to the participants and guests of the Prayer Breakfast.

As part of this exchange, ten Ukrainian civilians have returned home. Among those released are Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people Nariman Dzhelyal, who was detained in Crimea in 2021, art historian Olena Piekh, who was held hostage in Russia for almost six years, and Valeriy Matyushenko, who was detained in the Donetsk region in 2017 and tortured, which left him with a disability.

Another five Ukrainians who were captured in Belarus and deprived of their freedom in 2022-2023 were also brought home. They are Mykola Shvets, Natalia Zakharenko, Pavlo Kupriienko, Liudmyla Honcharenko, and Kateryna Briukhanova.

The President urged all those present to fight for the return of all our people who are still in Russian captivity, all Ukrainian children who were abducted in the occupied territories and forcibly deported to Russia.