By (The text after the 2nd paragraph has been added)
KYIV. May 4 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Russia unlawfully holds in captivity over 20,000 Ukrainian civilians today, Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets has said.
“According to our approximate estimations, the Russian Federation currently holds in captivity over 20,000 civilians… The number will become much higher after we liberate our temporarily occupied territories,” he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
The ombudsman explained that the number of Ukrainian people in Russian captivity is estimated taking into account the appeals of people whose relatives were detained by Russian military, however, there are almost no such appeals from people who currently live in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
Lubinets recalled that he has sent the list of “approximately 2,000 civilians” to Russian Ombudsperson Tatyana Moskalkova in January 2023.
“The list was compiled taking the age of 65 and older as a criterion. So, these are senior people who suffer diseases. After that the Russian side once assured us that they are working on the list, and that’s all,” he said.
The Ukrainian ombudsman also recalled that 2,279 Ukrainian citizens, including 142 civilians, were liberated since the launch of the Coordination Headquarter for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
