American Suedi Murekezi has just been freed from Russian-controlled territory by a team from Ukraine’s military intelligence and is now being driven to Kyiv.
ABC News followed a military convoy into the war’s grey zone just outside Zaphorizhia in southern Ukraine. A two-hour ceasefire was agreed to in the area, starting at midday local time, so that a swap involving dozens of prisoners of war could go ahead. Murekezi was brought out of Russian-controlled territory as part of that exchange.
Suedi had been arrested by the Russian-controlled authorities and spent weeks in a basement, where he said he was tortured. He also spent three months in a prison in Donetsk city. He was later released by the Russians, but he was without his U.S. passport and was effectively trapped in Russian-controlled territory, living in the main city of Donetsk.
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