Russia obstructs access to Ukrainian POWs using sham organizations — Ukrainian intel

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate reported the information.

They reported that these fake organizations, created by Russian special services, simulate the implementation of humanitarian missions in the detention locations of Ukrainian prisoners. This is used as an argument to prevent international human rights organizations from accessing Ukrainian prisoners.

According to the Main Intelligence Directorate, there is currently information on 186 locations where Ukrainian prisoners are being held, to which the Russians are not allowing representatives of the Red Cross and other monitoring missions.

"Unfortunately, today such fake structures are actively used for hostile propaganda and the collection of confidential information from relatives and friends of Ukrainians who are in captivity. That is why the families of prisoners should contact exclusively Ukrainian state bodies and in no case believe the pocket structures of the Russian special services, regardless of their name and declared tasks," Ukrainian intelligence added.

They emphasized that any information transmitted to Russia will certainly be used against Ukraine and its citizens.

• Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, at least 206 Ukrainian prisoners of war have died in Russian prisons.