This story might seem fantastic if it were not the bitter truth of the national present and the result of the inaction of the Ukrainian special services.
So, in the second year of the bloody invasion, when it is clear to every Ukrainian that the enemy is Russia, and the ‘conflict’ is a terrible war of the 21st century that causes hundreds of casualties among the military and civilians every day, the wife of a Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier who lost contact with us in March 2024 contacted our editorial office. For safety’s sake, we will refer to this woman as Maria.
During the meeting, Maria said that her husband, who was serving under contract in one of the brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, had stopped getting in touch, and the command of the unit in which he served reported that his whereabouts were unknown. Of course, like any loving woman and man, Maria could not believe that her husband had died and began her own search. Hundreds of hours spent on thematic forums, dozens of official requests and circles of military bureaucracy yielded results: Maria found out that her husband was alive, but in captivity.
For reference: According to the Wikipedia information page, as of the end of 2023, more than 3,500 people were held in Russian captivity, excluding civilians, and these figures are changing dynamically.
So, having found out her husband’s whereabouts, Maria began to make every effort to free him and contacted the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. It’s fair to say that she has no complaints about the activities of the headquarters – it is staffed by experienced people who make great efforts to return every Ukrainian every day.
However, the process of negotiating the return is quite sensitive and lengthy, depending on dozens of factors, the will of the mediators and the other party. Therefore, it would be futile to hope for an instant result. You just need to wait, pray to God and not engage in amateurish activities.
And here is where the most cynical part of this story begins. It is cynical because of the unscrupulousness and lack of any moral barriers among the employees of the enemy’s integral combat unit – the FSB. Thus, in particular, the personnel of the aforementioned special service, who are well aware of the moral state of relatives of Ukrainian prisoners of war, playing on feelings and the desire to organise the speedy return of their relatives, using their own agent network, create organised criminal groups that offer relatives of Ukrainian prisoners of war to speed up the exchange, but for money.
Of course, there is no ‘help’ involved. The purpose of such activities is to demoralise the victims and cynically and fraudulently seize their money.
This is exactly the story of our Maria and hundreds of other women and men whom we have tracked down and who are giving their testimonies…
Continued in the second part of the article. Follow the announcements.
