Currently, in the Unified Register of Missing Persons under special circumstances, there are 42,000 individuals listed as missing and actively being searched for. Dmitry Bohatyuk, head of the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Persons Missing under Special Circumstances, provided this information, reported Ukrinform.
"Since the registry's inception, information on over 51,000 individuals who were considered missing under special circumstances has been entered. Currently, this figure includes individuals who are still being sought. There are approximately 42,000 such individuals at present," he stated.
Bohatyuk also mentioned that the Ministry of Internal Affairs has records on around 7,000 persons for whom information has been established.
"This includes over 3,000 individuals whose whereabouts have been determined and who are alive and well. The majority of these individuals are our former prisoners of war. At the moment, we have identified around 4,000 bodies. The vast majority of them are our defenders who were considered missing under special circumstances but have since been identified," he added.
The representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs noted that over 90% of investigations into disappearances of persons without a trace are being conducted by the National Police.
He explained that typically, a person is initially considered missing under special circumstances, but it is later confirmed that they were in captivity.
Bohatyuk also pointed out existing issues, such as the collection of DNA samples from military personnel deployed to conflict zones, noting that the Ministry of Defense currently does not perform this procedure.
"In other words, while this issue is more or less resolved within the National Police, the National Guard, and the State Border Guard Service with the help of international partners and the Red Cross, it still exists within the Ministry of Defense," he concluded.
