Russia holds more than 1,500 Ukrainian civilians captive in Russian prisons

Russia is illegally detaining more than 1,500 civilian Ukrainians in Russian prisons, said Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk at the press conference on June 20.

According to the official, the difficulty of liberating civilians from captivity is that under international law, civilians do not have a status according to which they can be exchanged.

"We cannot exchange civilians. Today we have more than 1,500 civilians in Russian prisons: in Rostov and Kursk. They are detained as prisoners of war, although they should not be prisoners. They do not have status under international humanitarian law," Vereshchuk said, adding that volunteers, activists, journalists, priests, deputies of local councils, elders, etc. were taken prisoners in Russia.

On June 18, Ukraine managed to return from Russian captivity four Ukrainian civilians. Three of them were captured during the occupation of Hostomel in Kyiv Oblast.

Vereshchuk said that according to Ukrainian intelligence, 1.2 million people were deported to Russia since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, including 240,000 children, 2,161 of which are orphans.