Lubinets tells what Ukraine is doing to free civilian captives

The Ukrainian parliamentary commissioner for human rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said this.

According to him, a separate working group was set up within the Coordinating Staff for the Treatment of Prisoners of War to return the civilian hostages of the Russian Federation. It is headed by Ombudsman Oleksandr Kononenko.

The first problem that Ukraine is solving now is the legal register of civilians. According to a law voted for back in 2018, the Interior Ministry is responsible for the register. two days ago, the Interior Ministry officially announced that such a register had begun its work. It will take some time to fill this register, but all information will be recorded in it," Lubinets said.

The ombudsman stressed that he could not disclose the details of the work yet. However, it is known that Ukraine handed over to Russia a list of civilian hostages whom it demands to be returned.

In parallel, we started (I cannot say publicly) some processes. The first list of civil hostages I personally handed over to Tatyana Moskalkova (January 13, 2023) in Ankara was about 2 thousand civilians by the age criterion of 65+. We received an assurance from the Russian side that they are working on this list," the Commissioner for Human Rights said.

We shall remind you that since the start of the full-scale invasion , 140 Ukrainian citizens have been returned from the Russian captivity. Overall, the occupiers are holding more than 20,000 Ukrainian civilians captive. However, this figure is not final since it is based on applications from relatives whose relatives and friends have been detained by the Russian military.