The soldier is thinly dressed. The window has been open all night. It is freezing cold in the cell, and he is cold. But he knows that it will get worse when the prison guards come to get him. ‘Some days we were beaten around the clock,’ he says. This is how Illia Morozyuk (27) describes everyday life as a prisoner in Russian prisons. NRK meets him at the largest hospital in Lviv, in western Ukraine, two months after his release from Russian captivity. After the first part of journey: a bus ride with a Norwegian ambulance bus, the Medivac plane will first fly Rzeszów to Frankfurt, then on to Amsterdam and Hamburg, before landing in Oslo. Illia finds it difficult to put into words how he feels when the plane is in the air, but admits that he feels a sense of relief. ‘Everything feels good,’ he says and smiles. He knows little about what awaits him in Norway. The only thing he knows is that he is going to have surgery on his hand. ‘And I know that I'm not going back to the war. It's over for me,’ says Illia.

Reporter: Paal Wergeland

Photographer: Frode Fjerdingstad

For: Nrk Nyheter

©2025

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