UKRAINE, KHARKIV OBLAST, Feb. 18 — On Feb. 5, Russia and Ukraine conducted the 71st prisoners of war (POW) exchange, when 150 soldiers and seven civilians returned home, including Nazar Daletskyi, a Ukrainian soldier who was presumed dead, said Leonid Tymchenko, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, to Censor.Net, a Ukrainian media outlet.

After the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv oblast during September 2022, mass graves of Ukrainian people were discovered in the liberated territories. The Prosecutor’s Office opened criminal proceedings against Russia for war crimes.

During the inspection, specialists collected the remains of unidentified bodies. Law enforcement officers from different regions of Ukraine were involved in the process because of the large number of potential war crimes. The Kharkiv Scientific Research Expert-Criminalistic Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs examined remains found in the mass graves.

In 2022, Daletskyi’s family were informed that he had died during a combat mission. 

In January 2023, DNA from remains found in a bullet-riddled car in liberated area of Kharkiv oblast showed a high degree similarity to that of Daletskyi’s mother, who had provided the sample for testing. A match was confirmed, and Daletskyi’s relatives buried the body under Nazar’s name. According to Tymchenko, the DNA test match occurred automatically, and human error is impossible.

“There is a specific algorithm that determines how biological material is processed and how the formula is derived. In this case, the match is 99.99987%,” Tymchenko explained.

An expert from the Kharkiv Research Center concluded that Daletskyi’s mother could be the mother of the person whose remains were found. Experts reportedly  recommended conducting an additional examination, but it was not carried out.

On Feb. 11, specialists exhumed the body of an unknown person from a grave bearing the name Nazar Daletsky at a cemetery in the Lviv region, said Valeriia Chyrina, spokesperson for the regional Prosecutor’s office, to Gwara Media.

The Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation as part of ongoing criminal proceedings previously opened in the Kharkiv region.

Tymchenko added that the match in the identified relationships could have occurred because of a reagent failure. However, the Kharkiv research center denied the possibility of a failure. They said that during the test, “control DNA” is examined in parallel. This allows them to check the performance of the equipment and reagents, ruling out failure.

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