As President Vladimir Putin’s forces further their advance into Ukraine, worried Russians hoping to identify relatives who have gone missing in action now have a lifeline — courtesy of Ukrainian government officials.
A new website dubbed “Look for Yours” has been set up by representatives of the Ukrainian interior ministry, and pledges to offer information “about captured and killed Russian soldiers in Ukraine.”
POLITICO has identified a Ukrainian national who appears in a video on the site’s homepage to present the initiative as Victor Andrusiv, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry.
“If your relatives or friends are in Ukraine and participate in the war against our people, here you can find information about their fate,” the website states, directing visitors to a Telegram feed showing a constant stream of captured, wounded and dead Russian soldiers.
The feed presents a collection of miscellaneous video content from the front line of the war, featuring detained Russian paratroopers, prisoners of war being interrogated by Ukrainian forces, discarded personal belongings of missing servicemen, and captured soldiers making impassioned pleas to their families back in Russia.
There are also examples of graphic content, in the form of deceased Russian soldiers, many of whom have gone unidentified.
“This resource was created by the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” one Ukrainian government official told POLITICO. “By using it, Russian mothers can look for their guys. Many of them are dead, a lot couldn’t be identified, and some have been captured.”
Elsewhere, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense has established a dedicated telephone “helpline” to assist many Russian families in their search for loved ones who have gone missing in action.
A Telegram post from the Ukrainian parliament’s official channel states that the helpline has “received hundreds of calls from Russians looking for their relatives in the Russian army who were captured in Ukraine.”
“To stop the war, we need more Russians to know about their losses in Ukraine,” the post states.
Promoting the initiative last weekend, another Ministry of Internal Affairs official, Anton Herashchenko, said that the helpline would be used to assist Russians in their quest for transparency and truth regarding the war.
“If we have your relative in captivity, you can leave a short message for your husband or son,” Herashchenko said in a Facebook post.
https://ift.tt/U1DKPmz March 02, 2022 at 08:26PM
Samuel Stolton