Bogdan Furman vanished from his home in Cherkasy, a city in central Ukraine, and went off the radar despite a massive police search.
Police believed he had fallen prey to a paedophile killer, and prepared the boy's family for the worst.
But January 2016, police found his hideout in a shabby shack hidden by the snow on the banks of river Dnipro.
The boy told police that he ran away on his own free will because he was unhappy at home and often beaten up by his drunken mother and father.
'Basically he was an unhappy child. He wasn't taken by a peadophile - he ran away to try to find some happiness,' Aleksandr Vilganiuk, a police spokesman, said after interviewing him.
In the streets, Furman befriended a 24-year-old homeless man who became a sort of second father to him. 'He was like a father to me, I was calling him my dad,' he said.
'He always asked me if I was hungry, always was worrying if I am cold,' he said. When I was living with my parents every time I would be a little late from school my real father would beat me up.'
'I can understand my mother, she is not a bad person, but she would get drunk occasionally, she didn't have an easy life.'
Nadya Furman, his mother, said; ' I am very thankful to the police and all the people that were looking for my boy, I am very grateful for his return and I want to change for the better.'
Bogdan has been returned to his family....but the social services are keeping a close eye on him.
