Pictures stuck in "Icloud limbo": displayed on phone but cannot be downloaded

Hi Apple community,

I'm having a problem downloading my pictures from my phone. It says my phone has 907 photos on it, only 25 of which are actually recognized as such by my PC. The rest has, I think, been uploaded to ICloud and is therefore saved differently on my phone (my theory, please confirm). My settings were that in the case of no storage, the photos are kept on the phone in lower quality and uploaded to ICloud in original quality. There are almost 900 photos now that are stuck in some sort of "ICloud limbo". I cannot download them to my PC, I downloaded ICloud for Windows and the folders are all empty, and 3rd parties, like Dropbox for IOS, also don't recognize my photos and won't allow me to upload them.

Please help me, I have no idea how to get my pictures back.

Thank you,

neuneph