More than 1.5 thousand civilians are in Russian captivity - Vereshchuk
There are more than 1.5 thousand Ukrainian civilians in Russian captivity who are not prisoners of war and must be released.
This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories Iryna Vereshchuk during a briefing, reports Censor.NЕТ with reference to Ukrinform.
"More than 1,500 civilians are in Russian prisons - they are sitting in Rostov, Kursk, they are in pre-trial detention facilities, they are being held as prisoners of war, although they are not supposed to be captives. ... They should be released," Vereshchuk said.
She added that among the Ukrainian civilians in captivity are volunteers, activists, journalists, priests, deputies of local councils, heads of local authorities. According to her, they managed to return 103 people in March-May and this process continues, the authorities continue working on it, there are also cases when people get out of captivity on their own or with the help of volunteers.
Vereshchuk said that the International Committee of the Red Cross had previously appealed to Russia to provide a list of Ukrainian civilians held captive by the Russian Federation, and Ukraine was also given this list. According to her, Russia included only 120 people in such a list and there is not a single woman among them, but this is not true. The government also stressed that it was now necessary to work to make sure that Russia recognized other civilians it had captured and handed over to the Ukrainian side.
