Portrait: Dmytro Khyliuk, a prisoner of Putin, finds his voice again

Born in 1975, Dmytro Khyliuk became a journalist at the age of 30 "by chance" and discovered not just a career, but a calling: "Journalism makes it possible to hold those in power to account and to serve society." In 2014, he joined the Independent Ukrainian Information Agency (UNIAN), founded in 1993, where he covers political affairs. His career is intrinsically linked to the key moments in Ukraine's contemporary history: the Revolution of Dignity in 2013-2014, the occupation of Crimea, the war in Donbas, and the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

On 3 March 2022, he was in the garden with his father in Kozarovychi, a village north of Kyiv where Ukrainian forces had destroyed a dam on 26 February 2022, to slow the Russian advance. Russian soldiers intercepted them, forced them to the ground and arrested them. Thus began more than three years of arbitrary detention for Dmytro Khyliuk. Initially imprisoned locally, he was transferred via Belarus to Novozybkov in south-west Russia, before being sent to the IK-7 penal colony in Pakino, in the Vladimir region, 200 kilometres east of Moscow. Beatings, humiliation, cold and hunger shaped his daily existence. According to fellow detainees who managed to pass on news of him, his weight fell to 45 kilograms. For him, "the hardest part was the total absence of information": he knew nothing of what was happening in Ukraine. That changed only on 24 August 2025, the date he was released, when he was finally reunited with his family.

Since his release, Dmytro Khyliuk has spoken out repeatedly in Kyiv, Strasbourg and Brussels. He determinedly recounts his ordeal and reminds his listeners of the fate of the 26 Ukrainian journalists still imprisoned by Putin's Russia. Naming the victims, telling their stories and maintaining pressure on the Kremlin are vital to him. Having returned to his work as a political journalist at UNIAN, Dmytro Khyliuk also embraces his role as a witness and spokesperson: ensuring that the voice Russia stole from him for more than three years is now heard once again.

By Pauline Maufrais, Ukraine Desk Officer, RSF

This article was originally published in French in the March 2026 edition of the RSF Photo Album"100 Photos for Press Freedom."