Returned from captivity dead: why Russia holds hundreds of Ukrainian civilian hostages

Putin's army, which occupied part of Kyiv region in 2022 and abducted civilians, recently returned Andriy Pashchenko, a resident of the Dymer community born in 1984, dead.

As reported by the Dymer community on their Facebook page, this man disappeared from the village of Dymer on March 29, 2022. "Over the past two years, all efforts to bring Andriy back home were in vain. He died in captivity. Only after his death, through a prisoner exchange, was it possible to retrieve his body from enemy territory," the Dymer community stated.

The village council adds that the farewell will take place tomorrow in Dymer.

What could be the purpose behind the occupiers still holding Ukrainian civilians captive? The Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War provided information in a comment to TSN.ua.

"Civilians are not considered as part of the exchange pool because we fundamentally do not exchange them for military personnel. Otherwise, it would encourage the occupiers to take more hostages in the temporarily occupied territories," Petro Yatsenko, a representative of the Coordination Headquarters, told TSN.ua.

He added: "We are proposing the “I want to go to my own" project to exchange them for convicted collaborators. This project is already operational, with over 230 proposals and agreements from people willing to be transferred. Holding civilians is illegal, but everyone knows that the Russian side is conducting a genocidal war. They hold civilians to pressure Ukrainian society and their relatives, offering them certain services in return. They also hold them to prosecute these people and show their society, saying: "Look, these are the Nazis."

Recently, Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets also commented on the release of civilians.

"Civilians are the most challenging category to return. First, because we cannot apply the exchange procedure to them: civilians are illegally deprived of personal freedom, and if a civilians are detained, they must be immediately released. Second, the Russians try to turn civilians into criminals and issue court sentences against them. Currently, over 14,000 people are considered missing under special circumstances," Dmytro Lubinets stated.

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