Russians are collecting personal data about prisoners of war and their relatives among Ukrainians, the Coordination Headquarters on the treatment of prisoners of war has warned.
According to the HQ, Russian web resources massively send SMS messages to the families of Ukrainian defenders with a proposal to fill out a questionnaire, which allegedly will help to find a prisoner in Russia or in the occupied territories.
"The Coordination Headquarters on the treatment of prisoners of war warns: under the guise of 'assistance; to families searching for missing persons, the Russian special services are collecting personal data, which may ultimately harm the defenders in captivity and prevent their release," the HQ said.
Relatives and friends of the Ukrainian servicemen were urged to ignore any third-party unofficial messages, not to provide any personal information about their relatives to suspicious persons / websites / Telegram channels, as well as to report cases of illegal collection of personal data to law-enforcement agencies.
"For the sake of safety of Ukrainian servicemen, all issues related to their captivity should be discussed with the Coordination Headquarters on the treatment of prisoners of war - the only specialized state institution dealing with the issues of assistance and release from captivity," the headquarters stressed.