The presidential commissioner for ensuring the rights of defenders of Ukraine stressed that the Russian Federation denies the Red Cross access to prisoner-of-war camps.

About 3.4 thousand Ukrainian servicemen are now in captivity, and another 15 thousand people are missing.

Olena Verbytska, Presidential Commissioner for Ensuring the Rights of Ukrainian Defenders, said this in an interview with the German RND, informing the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security (under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine).

“We don’t know what happened to them (with the missing). Whether they are also Russian prisoners of war, whether they were forcibly removed from the territories occupied by Russia, or perhaps, they were killed long time ago. Such uncertainty is especially difficult for relatives,” Verbitskaya said.

She stressed that the Russian Federation denies the Red Cross access to POW camps and systematically violates the Geneva Convention.