Of all Ukrainians held by Russia as civilians, only 892 people have been internationally verified — through the International Committee of the Red Cross. The verified government figure is higher — about 2,000. But the actual scale, according to Ombudsman of the Verkhovna Rada Dmytro Lubinets, could reach 16,000 people. The difference between what is known and what actually exists is not a statistical error. It is a systemic problem.
How they are captured and why they disappear
Civilians are detained in occupied territories and during filtration procedures. According to Lubinets, Russia deliberately attempts to reclassify them as "combatants" — to remove them from the scope of norms that protect civilians. The Geneva Conventions prohibit exchanging civilian hostages for prisoners of war: these are different legal categories. However, Ukraine has already managed to return 168 civilians through exchange procedures — using a separate mechanism that the negotiating team has built manually.
"We have a separate list according to which, based on preliminary data, more than 16,000 civilian citizens of Ukraine are held in Russian prisons"
Dmytro Lubinets, Ombudsman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukrinform
Why the ICRC verified so few
The only official channel for confirming captivity is information from the ICRC. However, the organization only works with those it has gained access to. Russia, contrary to international humanitarian law requirements, has not established a National Information Bureau — a body that should maintain a register of prisoners of war and transmit data to the opposing side. Instead, its functions are partially performed by the Russian Defense Ministry's hotline, which is not an equivalent replacement. The result: even Ukraine's Single Register of Missing Persons contains over 80,000 people — and for the majority of them, the status is unknown.
Civilians — a separate category that falls outside exchange
A prisoner exchange on June 26 brought home 160 Ukrainian military personnel. Civilians are not legally included in this list — there is no standardized mechanism for them. Lubinets also noted that Russia holds journalists, and Moscow has still not returned the body of journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, whose death has been confirmed by official documentation.
Until Russia grants the ICRC access to places where civilians are held and fulfills its obligations regarding the NIB, the figure of "16,000" will remain an estimate — without names, without statuses, without any chance of exchange under any existing protocol. The question is not how many of them there actually are. The question is whether a verification mechanism will be established before the war ends — because after any agreements are signed, access to these people may become even more difficult.
