More than 8,000 Ukrainians, civilians and military, are still in Russian captivity. As a result of exchanges between Ukraine and Russia, 2,681 Ukrainian servicemen and 147 civilians have been returned home, a representative of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Yuriy Taranyuk, has said a meeting of the Council for Human Rights, Gender Equality and Diversity at the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
"So far, 49 exchanges have been carried out and 2,828 people have been returned home, including 2,681 military and 147 civilians. More than 8,000 people are currently in captivity, including more than 1,600 civilians. However, tens of thousands of people, both civilians and prisoners of war, are in the status of missing persons," Taranyuk said.
According to him, tens of thousands of people are considered missing. At the same time, Russia violates humanitarian law when it fails to report the fact of captivity. "Therefore, a huge number of these missing people are obviously also in captivity," Taranyuk said.
"If we look at the trend, only more than half of the more than 8,000 people in captivity are 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 said.