"Apostle" Dmytro Karpenko told what one should not do if a relative is taken captive

Apostle Dmytro Karpenko told in an interview with journalist Ramina Eshakzai about what you should not do when your relative is held captive in Russia, how his cousin returned from captivity, what motivation Russians have to go to war in Ukraine, and how much money was spent on "rescuing" Russian prisoners.

The most interesting fragments of the interview:

Why you should not publish data about missing relatives on social networks

There are cases when our soldiers had time to put on civilian clothes and then were captured. And when relatives published their data in social networks, it turned out that they were military. Therefore, the occupants applied other methods to them.

What makes us different from the Russian Federation is that we have a special body that keeps records and deals with prisoners of war. There is a centre in the SBU, there is the National Information Bureau on prisoners of war. We have a procedure of interaction of state bodies with the population. To create "weight" for your relative to be exchanged, it doesn't work like that.

Why exchanges like "silence"

There have been no official exchanges since 7 July this year. But exchanges take place regularly. On the part of the Russian army, there are commanders who want to take their soldiers. They come out to our military, and there are field exchanges. And then there is an agreement that there is no publicity, no press and no cameras.

And when ours come back, they are instructed to call home and tell them not to write to anyone that they've been exchanged. After all, there are other POWs of ours. And there is an agreement that should not be broken. Therefore, if your relative is found, wait for him, rejoice, but do not publish it in the social network. After all, the FSB will see that there was an exchange "past" Moscow. What's this for?!

How Ukrainians can hinder the success of the exchange

Our military is hampered by publicity. For example, the exchange can be on Thursday, and some bad blogger or political figure finds out about it. He writes a message: tomorrow the exchange is cancelled. What happens: the exchange is cancelled. Now call all the relatives on the list who were to be exchanged and explain why the exchange didn't take place.

How has the situation changed since Prigozhin was removed?

Now the Muscovites have left. "Wagnerites" are not captured because they are gone. They were chased to re-sign the contract, and they are in different units. The army has turned into a gang. "Wagner" had a position, they didn't mix with the regular army. They fought separately. It was only at the end that they started mixing them. And when they started mixing with the regular army, they started to disintegrate. Their commanders became "blatniks", their commanders became a retinue of zeks.

How much a captured Russian officer is "worth"

There was a period when the exchange fund of prisoners stopped replenishing. The military cannot be accused of killing prisoners, because this is war. So we came up with an idea to pay money to the Ukrainian military not to kill Russian prisoners.

By my calculations it was paid for 500 captives, an average of $300 per person, $150,000. Now prices have fallen, the market dictates new rates: cons at $100, junior officers at $300, senior officers, African Americans at $500+.

Why Russia does not want to take away the corpses of soldiers

It is very expensive, because it is easier to give the status "missing in action" than to take prisoners. After all, the prisoner knows the truth. And in order to be a dead person - you need to have a body. And so, the status of "missing in action", there is no need to pay salaries. That is why the exchange of bodies now happens rarely.