Russia is holding at least 403 Ukrainian women captive. Many of them are illegally detained civilians.
This was reported by the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
There are also women whose fate is unknown since 2014, who have gone missing. The Russian side responds to numerous appeals demanding the return of enslaved women with silence and ignores all appeals.
The conditions of holding Ukrainian women in Russian captivity do not comply with the Third Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War. The women released from captivity testify, among other things, about humiliation, inhumane conditions of detention, insufficient nutrition, the inability to receive qualified medical care and to contact their relatives.
Also, the Russians continue to deny representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross access to the places of detention of prisoners and civilians, of which there are more than 100 in the Russian Federation and in the temporarily occupied territories.
"The Ukrainian side has repeatedly offered Russia to release the women first, but instead the representatives of the aggressor country are engaged in manipulations, in particular, the publication of various lists. But behind all this lies the reluctance to continue exchanges," the headquarters emphasized.
- In January, the Coordination Headquarters reported that 8,000 Ukrainians — both military and civilian — were in Russian captivity.
- The last exchange of prisoners took place on February 8. Then 100 fighters returned home, most of them defenders of Mariupol.