Over 7,000 Ukrainian soldiers missing, up to 65% believed to be captured

More than seven thousand Ukrainian soldiers are considered missing.

Oleh Kotenko, the Commissioner for Persons Gone Missing under Special Circumstances, said this on the air of the "Yedyni Novyni" telethon, Ukrinform reports.

"There is such a figure, it is a little more than seven thousand, and we count on the fact that those people we are looking for as missing persons are still captured. I think this percentage is much more than missing persons, and it is somewhere between 60-65% – there is already such a statistic in our country. These are living people who are in captivity. The others, unfortunately, are the dead," said Kotenko, answering the question of how many Ukrainian soldiers are now considered missing.

According to him, thanks to the fact that Ukraine returns many prisoners, conversations are held with them, and they tell where they were and how many people they saw there.

"Plus or minus, we know the places where they are kept – both in the Russian Federation and in the occupied territories, I mean the Luhansk and Donetsk regions," Kotenko added.

"There is an understanding of how many prisoners we have," the Commissioner noted.

For reference:

President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that as of February 24, 2022, Ukraine returned 2,235 people from Russian captivity.