The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE-PACE) states in its resolution on the situation in Ukraine that as of September 18, 2024, 65,956 Ukrainian servicemen and civilians were listed as missing or captured.

However, the CSCE notes that almost 51,000 of them are considered missing based on verified data. “In reality, the number is much higher,” the resolution says.

The CSCE notes that among those released earlier from Russian captivity, a third are still considered missing “because the Russian Federation did not provide timely information on their fate, in violation of its international obligations.”

The MEPs stressed that when adopting the resolution they wanted to be “the voice of prisoners of war and civilians held in Russia or in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine”. At the same time, the CSCE was shocked by the conclusions of international organizations that provided evidence of the systematic use of torture against Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians.

The CSCE “strongly” called on Russia to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross and relevant UN structures access to places where Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians are held, as required by international law of war.

Regarding Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine, 104 out of 205 people interviewed by UN experts since March 2023 reported being tortured.

Russia denies allegations of torture and other forms of ill-treatment of prisoners of war.

In June, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that there were 1,348 Russian POWs in Ukraine, while Russia had 6,465 Ukrainian POWs.