By Galina Korol | 2024-05-06

KYIV -- In Ukraine, thousands of families wake up every day hoping to at least receive some news about their missing relatives.

"For me, every day is worse than torture," said Irina Usova, who relocated to Zaporizhzhia city after her home city of Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia province, fell under Russian occupation.

"My son disappeared," she told Kontur. "The neighbors supposedly didn't see anyone or anything. Of course I don't believe it. Everyone is just afraid and trembling."

She does not blame them for their silence; she does not want them to be tortured by the Russians.

Irina's son, Vladislav Usov, should turn 28 this year. He is a veteran of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO), the Ukrainian war against Russian invaders that began in 2014.

When Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in 2022, it had been three years since he completed his military service.

Russian troops occupied Enerhodar on February 27, just days after the war began. Usova's husband joined the army immediately and was wounded near Soledar. He died in hospital later.

Usova and her younger children left the occupation six months later. Usov stayed in Enerhodar, since Russian troops manning checkpoints could have found out his military background, which would endangered the rest of the family.

Usova destroyed all the documents proving her son and husband's military experience, but the Russians could have found out about them anyway, she said.

Abducted from home

Once safe in Zaporizhzhia, Usova contacted her son every day, either by phone or through social networks. But on March 3, 2023, he stopped responding.

On March 3, three armed and uniformed Russians entered her old apartment building "at about 9am and stayed in our apartment for about 25 minutes. I don't know what they did there, but they ended up taking my son."

She provided Kontur with surveillance camera footage that she obtained with the help of friends still in the city. The footage is not clear enough to show faces, but in it three men enter the stairwell. After a half-hour, four men leave.

"I no longer believe that he's alive," Usova said tearfully.

Usov is included in the Ukrainian Unified Register of Persons Missing in Special Circumstances, which Ukraine has maintained since May 2023.

"I've already written to everyone I can ... we even wrote the FSB [Russian Federal Security Service]... but nothing, zero," Usova said.

Russia hindering searches

Russia has been abducting civilians since 2014, but the situation has worsened since the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said April 16 at a conference in Kyiv on illegally detained Ukrainians.

"Almost 37,000 [Ukrainians] are considered missing: children, civilians, and soldiers. These numbers may be significantly higher," Lubinets wrote on his Telegram channel, summarizing his speech.

Many of the 37,000 missing persons may still be alive. But Russia hinders confirmation of the presence of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) and also provides very little information on civilians, say rights activists.

"Russia does not have the right to detain civilians -- it is prohibited by ... international humanitarian law," said Olena Belyachkova, who coordinates groups of families of POWs for the Media Initiative for Human Rights, a Ukrainian NGO.

Thus, when they hold civilians, "the Russians are trying in every possible way to apply ... POW status, to them," she told Kontur. "Naturally, they are accused of collaborating with the Ukrainian military or SBU [Security Service of Ukraine]."

International efforts

By speaking with captured soldiers who have returned to Ukraine through prisoner swaps, rights activists can confirm that missing Ukrainian civilians are being illegally detained in Russian barracks or prison cells.

"Soldiers and civilians may be placed together in a cell or barracks," Belyachkova said. "One released soldier gave me the names of 15 civilians with whom he was held at the respective detention sites."

However, even if a former Ukrainian POW gives a specific surname of a civilian he was imprisoned with in Russia, that person is still considered "missing," she said.

Procedure mandates confirmation of his identity by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

"In practice, it goes like this: the Russian Ministry of Defense sends lists of the people it considers necessary to confirm, through the [Ukrainian] National Information Bureau to the ICRC in Geneva, and then this information ends up at the ICRC's representative office in Ukraine and is communicated to relatives," explained Belyachkova.

"The [ICRC] is working very hard on the issue of missing persons, with both educational and financial support. It also helps with labs for DNA comparisons and with portable and stationary refrigerators," former Commissioner for Persons Missing under Special Circumstances Oleh Kotenko said during an April 19 broadcast by Suspline News.

The Central Administration of Civil-Military Cooperation of the Ukrainian military general staff conducts search parties to find missing persons, said Belyachkova. An interactive map plots sites where soldiers have disappeared.

"When they find bodies or remains, they gather them all ... soldiers, civilians and even Russians," Belyachkova said. "And then these bodies or remains are sent for subsequent collection of postmortem DNA samples and for forensic analysis."

This work is possible only in territories that Ukraine has liberated, she said, adding that if combat is occurring, searchers might be unable to work nearby.

Missing in action

Miroslava Voloshina of Demydivka, Rivne province, is also waiting for Donetsk province to be liberated so she can find information on her husband, Ruslan Voloshin.

Voloshin enlisted in the Rivne 14th Rifle Battalion and went to war on February 27, 2022.

The last time Voloshina spoke to her husband was on May 8, 2023. Three days later, he disappeared in combat.

"People told me that if the command knew he was killed, it would have written in a notice: 'missing, probably dead', but I haven't received anything. So I hope he's alive," she told Kontur tearfully.

Ukraine has much work ahead and needs international assistance to find missing persons, warn rights activists.

"We must, with the help of international partners, force Russia to comply with international norms and must develop mechanisms to recover our people," said Belyachkova.