During the war in Ukraine, about 63,000 people went missing, about 10,000 are in captivity. These figures were provided by the Commissioner for Missing Persons under Special Circumstances, Artur Dobroserdov, in an interview with «Suspilne», noting that the calculations have been conducted since 2014.
«More than 60,000 people are being searched for. We have confirmation for about 10,000 that they are in captivity. This includes both official confirmations — from the aggressor country through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) — and unofficial ones», he explained.
According to Dobroserdov, unofficial sources include testimonies from those released from captivity, as well as searches through OSINT. He added that Russian military personnel often post information online, from which the fact of people being in captivity is recorded. More than one and a half thousand missing persons have already been identified using such sources. Also, according to him, people are found through DNA, tattoos, and fingerprints.
In February, Volodymyr Zelensky reported on «tens of thousands» of missing and captured Ukrainians, and also announced the number of citizens killed in the war — more than 46,000. Many military experts considered these figures to be underestimated.
On April 19, 2025, 277 Ukrainians returned home as part of a prisoner exchange. In total, more than 4,000 people have been returned from captivity.
In the Kremlin, almost from the very beginning of the war with Ukraine, neither the number of losses among Russian soldiers nor the number of Russians captured have been disclosed.