Sixty-two years old at the time, Volodymyr Mykolaienko joined his local territorial defense force on the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. His hometown of Kherson, where he served as mayor from 2014 to 2020, was captured by Russian troops within weeks. The following month, soldiers arrested Mykolaienko on the street. He was interrogated, tortured, and taken as a prisoner to occupied Crimea, then on to a penal colony in Russia.

Kherson remained under occupation for nine months, until Ukrainian troops liberated the city in November 2022. Mykolaienko spent more than three years in captivity before he was able to return to Ukraine as part of a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia on August 24, 2025. Grateful Ukrainians lined the roadside as Mykolaienko and others were driven home.

DW: Mr. Mykolaienko, you're currently undergoing rehabilitation in a hospital in Kyiv. How are you?

Volodymyr Mykolaienko: I'm still weak, but it's not too bad. The air of Ukraine, the love and respect of the Ukrainian people uplift me. When we saw the crowd — people standing at the roadside from the Ukrainian border practically to Chernihiv, greeting us with flags and home-made placards, children and elderly people among them — it's really a boost for your health; you feel such joie de vivre, love, and respect for these people and for Ukrainians in general.

There's  much debate about why the Russians were able to take Kherson so quickly in 2022, and why the Antonivskyi Bridge connecting the left and right banks of the Dnipro wasn't blown up by the Ukrainian army in order to prevent it. You were a witness to these events. When did you realize that there weren't many in the city who were prepared to resist?

When we heard shots being fired on the left bank, after literally just a few hours, we asked ourselves what had happened and why, and where the resistance was that our military had told the president was in place just one month, or three weeks, I think, before the start of the war. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had visited the troops to check our forces' preparedness. A sort of training exercise was carried out under the command of the Ukrainian security service. And all the military told him: "Mr President, the enemy won't get through here." It's obvious to me that there must have been treachery. Treachery by people in important positions in the region of Kherson.

Was it treachery committed by individuals? Or organized, premeditated action?

I think it was a Russian fifth column. It was done at the behest of the Russian Federation: Someone somewhere ordered a mine clearance. It's just not possible that Russian troops were on the outskirts of Kherson within a couple of hours. Why wasn't the Antonivskyi Bridge blown up?

You were held in different places for three years, in Crimea and in Russia. Were there different conditions in the various prisons?

Yes, absolutely. Borisoglebsk in the Russian region of Voronezh — that was absolute hell. It was a torture chamber from morning till night. You were beaten at morning inspection, then there was yard exercise, and on the way there you were beaten again. And they beat you again at the evening inspection. We were in Crimea for two days. That was a kind of model institution that (Russian Human Rights Commissioner) Tatyana Moskalkova liked to visit. She staged a show there: "Look, these are the conditions we hold Ukrainian prisoners in." There was a television, chess and other board games, books. We also had normal meals. In Pakino, on the other hand, we were tortured simply by being denied food.

You're known to have refused to be part of a prisoner exchange in 2022 so a seriously injured Ukrainian could take your place. How did the Russians react to that?

The Russians tried to bargain. They said: "We'll demand 20 of our boys for you." I said no. I would never have agreed to such an exchange. How could I look a wife or mother in the eye and say they'd handed over 20 men for me? Sorry, but who is this Mykolaienko for whom they have to hand over so much? We're all the same: a former mayor, a soldier, a brigadier. And you have to get the people most in need released first — which are the sick ones.

You hardly received any information while you were in captivity. What events in Ukraine did you only find out about when you were exchanged, on August 24, 2025?

First, I learned that my family was all right, that everyone's healthy and in good spirits. That was the most important thing for me. I asked what the current situation was, where the front line is. It was as I'd suspected. But I couldn't begin to imagine what had happened in my hometown of Kherson. That there were drones flying over it, hunting down and killing people. That there are some scumbags sitting there on the left bank whose main job is to learn how to kill people. They hunt down minibuses or particular individuals and claim: "There are no civilians there, only soldiers. If someone's walking around there in civilian clothes, they're a soldier who has to be killed." I don't understand why there isn't an outcry every day, all over the world. This is murder — the murder of civilians.

Did you know about the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia?

We were aware that a lot of people all got out at once, in April or May. Not from our camp, but we heard about it. In eight months, 78 people were able to leave our camp. We kept count of them; it was very important for us, and we were really happy for each one. I say that in all honesty. I realized that an exchange must be happening, so I thought that maybe at some point my turn would come. We talked about how Vladimir Putin wasn't going to give up his claim to the territories. Ninety-nine percent said they didn't want to be exchanged for territory. No Ukrainian territory should be surrendered for us.

What struck you on your return to Ukraine, and to what extent have Ukrainians been changed by the war?

I was proud of my nation: proud of the achievement of the Ukrainians who have been repelling this invasion for three and a half years. Now, I see different cases. I don't understand the men who aren't at the front right now. Who's going to defend your families? Why did I, an old man, set out with a machine gun to try and defend them? And young men are saying: "Oh — no." I know not everyone can fight. But help the troops, work behind the lines, volunteer. I think that right now the only thing that should matter is securing victory and independence for our country.

The interview was conducted by Viktoriia Zhydyk. It has been translated from the original Ukrainian.