Oleksandr Yarovyi

Oleksandr Yarovyi

Date of abduction: March 2, 2022

Place of abduction: Kozarovychi village, Kyiv region

Columns of Russian troops entered Kozarovychi, Vyshhorod district, on the morning of February 26. When the war broke out, resident Nadiya Yarova was in her house with her husband, Mykola. Her grandson Oleksandr lived nearby and worked in a hardware store in Dymer near Kozarovychi.

“He was supposed to take the goods out of the store, the store owner decided. On that day, March 2, he was supposed to work, but in the evening, he did not answer my call, and on the morning of March 3, there was no contact with him. And in the afternoon. A neighbor said that the work truck was somewhere in the village. I went there. The car was there. The wheels were slashed. And Sasha’s house was a mess; it looked like they were searching, but no one was there,” says Nadiya, the grandmother of the abducted Oleksandr Yarovyi.

Neighbors say that the Russians came, made the boys kneel, and led them around the yard with their hands up. Oleksandr was among the detainees.

“I did not know where he was for a long time. In mid-March, I was told that a local man had returned from captivity and said that Sasha was being held in Dymer, Kyiv region,” says Yarovyi’s grandmother. According to her, on March 27, 2022, her grandson was already in the Bryansk detention center, where another hostage had heard about him.

In August 2022, Nadiia Yarova received a letter from her grandson dated April 14. It contained two words: “Alive. Healthy”. The International Committee of the Red Cross delivered the letters from the Russian detention center.