Almost 800 Azov residents are in Russian captivity. Among them are more than 40 women, including pregnant women, the head of the department for work with prisoners and their families of the patronage service of the Azov regiment, Olha Kravchenko, has said, according to a post on the Telegram channel Angels of Azov.
There is no proper medical support for pregnant women in captivity, so people need to be transported to the territory controlled by Ukraine.
The occupiers are also holding captive many elderly people. According to Kravchenko, in addition to combat injuries, they also have chronic diseases.
She insists the UN Mission and the Red Cross should have access to Ukrainian prisoners, but this is not so because Russia does not grant it.
"Almost 90% of the released prisoners had extreme anorexia, moral and psychological exhaustion, to such an extent that we were shocked... The wounds are old shrapnel and gunshot wounds in a severe advanced form, because there was no proper treatment either at Azovstal or in captivity. All the shrapnel remained inside the bodies of the boys and girls, which need to be operated on. There are injuries such as broken tendons and loss of eyesight," said Kravchenko.
The patronage service distributed the liberated soldiers among medical institutions, none of them were sent home because they all need treatment.
The patronage service also stressed that they cannot interview the troops liberated from captivity for information about other prisoners of the Kremlin.
"Now we are at such a stage that we can only listen to what they say. When we ask questions, the servicemen are embarrassed and say they do not remember. That is, they are not yet ready for such a dialogue. Therefore, please be patient - when we have the opportunity, we will interview them: who they saw, what they know, who someone said 'hello' to, and we will contact the relatives, but unfortunately not now, not in the near future," the patronage service said.
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that about 2,500 Ukrainians remain in Russian captivity, including civilians.
The day before, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that work on the next exchange of prisoners with Russia continues.