Russia uses Ukrainian prisoners of war to put pressure on Kyiv

Ukrainian prisoners of war began calling their families en masse and asking them to protest against the authorities in Kyiv.

A representative of the coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war Petro Yatsenko told “Politico” about this.

The soldiers call their relatives from captivity and say that, they say, Russia is ready to exchange them, but Ukraine refuses to do so.

"Recently, these calls have become massive. Therefore, we understood that this is a campaign of no confidence in the authorities," Yatsenko noted.

The wife of Ukrainian prisoner of war Valentyna Tkachenko said that her husband was captured on February 24, 2022, and was contacted for the first time on November 29, 2023. He called her on Viber and, not allowing her to ask questions, said: "Valya, go, make life difficult for Kyiv. Kyiv does not want to accept us back," and then apologized and ended the conversation. Valentina Tkachenko did not go to the protest, believing that her husband has become an instrument of the Kremlinʼs political game against Ukraine.

Currently, Russia is holding more than 3 000 Ukrainian soldiers and about 28 000 civilians in captivity. This is the official confirmed data, but the real number may be higher.

According to Yatsenko, Ukraine has recently increased the fund for the exchange of prisoners of war and added that the country is ready to accept all Russian occupiers if they decide to surrender.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has returned almost 2 600 military and civilian personnel from Russian captivity, as the representative of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Andriy Yusov announced in August. The last official exchange of prisoners of war took place on August 7 of this year. Then Ukraine managed to return 22 soldiers.

• At the year-end press conference, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the process of exchanging prisoners with Russia is complicated due to reasons from the Russian Federation, but work continues to return Ukrainian prisoners of war.
• Earlier, the Coordination Headquarters explained that Russia suspended the exchange of prisoners of war in order to influence Ukrainian society and create the impression that the authorities are allegedly not dealing with this issue.