Over 4,000 civilians kidnapped by the Russian Federation: how many people are still in captivity

Russia has kidnapped over 4,000 Ukrainian civilians since the start of the full-scale invasion. Of these, approximately 2,428 people still remain in illegal detention.

Such data was announced by the head of the Media Initiative for Human Rights, Tetyana Katrychenko.

According to her, some of the civilians were returned during exchanges, and over a thousand more people were released in other ways. At the same time, there is no exact number of victims – the accounting of such cases is still incomplete.

Human rights activists also record an increase in the number of places where Ukrainians are being held. If at the beginning of the full-scale war there were about 40, then now there are already 239 such locations – both in the occupied territories and in Russia.

According to the Media Initiative for Human Rights, Russia is increasingly transporting civilians to its territory after the so-called “trials” and distributing them among various colonies.

At the same time, there is practically no access to detained Ukrainians – neither for relatives nor for international organizations. Human rights activists emphasize: the problem of returning civilians still has no systematic solution, and releases often occur as an exception, and not as part of a clear state policy.