Ukraine is creating an online service that will allow Russians who have soldier relatives missing in Ukraine to check whether they have been confirmed dead or are prisoners of war, Ukrainian officials said today.

Kiev hopes the move will put pressure on Moscow 22 months into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as more and more Russians back home demand to know the fate of the missing soldiers.

The online search service called “I want to find”, as it is translated from Russian, will work on the Telegram application, which is very popular in both Russia and Ukraine.

“Russian citizens can officially apply to (the program) to get objective information about their relatives … which the ruling regime in the Russian Federation is withholding from them,” said Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the military intelligence service of Ukraine (GUR ) which is involved in the negotiations for the exchange of prisoners of war.

Ukraine and Russia have exchanged prisoners of war during the war. The largest prisoner exchange took place last week, when 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war – mostly soldiers but also six civilians – were returned to Kiev and exchanged for 248 Russian soldiers.

The online search program will collect information about the missing soldiers from those using the channel and cross-reference it with Ukraine’s databases of fallen, captured and missing Russian soldiers.

One of the people presenting the program is Irina Krunina, who introduced herself as a Russian citizen and co-founder of a citizens’ movement that is trying to find and bring back the Russian soldiers.

“If we receive an appropriate response, for example that your relative is being held captive in Ukraine, you can register for a consultation … and we will arrange a video call to confirm (the person’s identity),” he said.

“This will enable the Russians to go to their authorities and, based on this video call … demand the exchange (of the soldier).”