Over 8,000 Ukrainians remain in Russian captivity

Yurii Taraniuk, representative of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, stated this during a meeting of the Council on Human Rights, Gender Equality and Diversity at Ukraine's Foreign Ministry, Ukrinform reports.

"The goal of the Coordination Center is to return everyone from Russian captivity to Ukraine. This applies to both civilians and prisoners of war. So far, 49 exchanges have been conducted and 2,828 people have been returned home, including 2,681 military personnel. 147 civilians have also been returned. More than 8,000 people are currently in captivity, where we know it is captivity. And more than 1,600 of them are civilians," he said.

According to him, tens of thousands of people are considered missing. At the same time, Russia violates humanitarian law when it does not report the fact of captivity. Therefore, a huge number of these missing people are obviously also in captivity, Taraniuk said.

"If we look at the trend, only more than half of the more than 8,000 people in captivity have been confirmed by the Russian Federation through the ICRC. The rest of the information was obtained in one way or another - from released prisoners, etc.", he summarized.

• In the latest exchange on January 3, 230 soldiers and civilians were returned to Ukraine.
• On January 24, an Il-76 plane crashed in Russia. Russian media reported that there were Ukrainian prisoners of war on board, who were being transported to the Belgorod region for exchange. The DIU confirmed that an exchange was indeed being prepared, but the information about the presence of Ukrainian POWs on board is being checked.