More than 7,000 defenders of Ukraine are considered missing
More than 7,000 defenders of Ukraine are considered missing. These are servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, soldiers of the National Guard, employees of the Security Service of Ukraine, and so on. Most of these people are in captivity.
Oleh Kotenko, the commissioner for issues of missing persons under special circumstances, told Suspilne about this, Censor.NET reports.
"If we are talking about the military, let's understand who the military are. There is the Armed Forces, there is the National Guard, there are border guards, there are the SSU, and these are different institutions. They are not included in the figure given by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Armed Forces of Ukraine provides data on two thousand missing soldiers. Our call center has approximately 7,200 people. For example, the "Azov" regiment is the National Guard, and there are also missing persons there. "They did not get in touch with their relatives when they left Azovstal," says Kotenko.
According to him, most of the missing soldiers are in captivity. As an example, he gives the soldiers of the 1st battalion of the 36th brigade: "We know that they were taken to Russia. First of all, we need to understand how many people there are. If there are more than a hundred of them, then we understand that practically the entire battalion is in captivity. There is still no contact with them, so they are considered missing. Sooner or later they will be on the exchange list and they will return home. This is the case when we know for sure that the missing persons are alive."
