There are more than 150 places where the Russian Federation holds prisoners of war along with civilians

More than 150 places of detention of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians were discovered in the Russian Federation and in the occupied territories. A mechanism is being developed at the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War to help return these people.

There are more than 150 places in Russia, including in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, where Ukrainian prisoners of war are kept together with civilians. However, this does not mean that all these places also hold civilians. Petro Yatsenko, a representative of the Coordinating Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, reported this.

Currently, the Russian Federation has more than 150 places, including in the temporarily occupied territories, where Ukrainian prisoners of war are held together with civilians. This does not mean that civilians are also detained in all these places, but the conditions of detention of civilians are also not humane, and they also threaten their health. We, the coordination headquarters, are working out mechanisms on how to return these people – said Yatsenko.

Coordinator of groups of families of prisoners and missing persons of the Media Initiative for Human Rights, lawyer Olena Belyachkova noted that it is known about the death of 177 soldiers in Russian captivity.

The number that was voiced is 177 – this is the information that the families voiced at the meeting with our representatives of the authorities. It includes those prisoners of war who died as a result of the terrorist attack in Olenivka. We cannot say the exact number, because information about deaths in captivity is obtained from open sources, from families – said Belyachkova.

Yatsenko reported that Russia has not yet formed a mixed medical commission to visit prisoners of war.

In the summer of 2023, Ukraine, in accordance with the Third Geneva Convention, created a mixed medical commission – a body consisting of two doctors from a neutral country and a representative of a country that holds prisoners of war. The task of the mixed medical commissions is to inspect the state of health of the prisoners and send the seriously ill and seriously injured to the care of a third country or repatriate them to their country of origin.