Freed Marine Kurtmallayev spent more than two years in solitary confinement

Eskender Bariiev, a member of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people and head of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, said this in a post on Facebook, Ukrinform reports.

"It has become known about another Crimean Tatar prisoner of war who has been freed – Ruslan Kurtmallayev," Bariiev wrote.

According to information posted on Facebook by Zarema Bariieva, the 32-year-old Crimean Tatar, a native of the Dzhankoi district in Crimea, spent more than two years of his captivity in solitary confinement.

He had served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2014. A senior sergeant and platoon commander with the 501st Separate Marine Battalion of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, he was captured in Mariupol on April 4, 2022.

In the summer of 2022, his family received a brief four-line letter, through which they learned that Ruslan was alive. In the autumn of 2023, there was a single phone call from the penal colony, during which he managed to tell his wife that he was alive and in captivity.

As part of another prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia on February 5, Ukraine brought home 157 service members and seven civilians.

The released service members defended the country on the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Sumy, and Kyiv fronts. Most were captured during the defense of Mariupol. The youngest defender is 23 years old; he was captured at the age of 19 during the defense of Mariupol and was sentenced by Russia to "life imprisonment." The oldest defender is 63.

Photo credit: Eskender Bariiev, Zarema Bariieva / Facebook