Pavlo Kholodov is a cameraman for RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
There were scenes of raw emotion as hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers returned from Russia on the second day of a mass prisoner exchange on May 24. Draped in Ukrainian flags, they emerged from buses and were embraced by loved ones amid tears of joy.
A Russian shell came close to directly hitting an RFE/RL crew on the front line in Ukraine's Donetsk region. Correspondent Roman Pahulych and cameraman Pavlo Kholodov were filming with a Ukrainian drone team on October 10 when the shell struck.
Ten Ukrainian civilians arrived in Kyiv early on June 29 after years of imprisonment -- five had been held in Russia and five others in Belarus. Some -- such as Crimean Tatar politician Nariman Dzhelyal -- were detained on Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia.
Anton Smetskiy was a professional dancer in Kyiv before fighting against Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A mine took his right foot in combat, but he's determined to once again perform onstage.
