Over 60 Ukrainian prisoners of war serving sentences in a penal colony in Chechnya have been identified. This was reported by Anastasiia Shydlovska, head of the department of the Office for Persons Missing Under Special Circumstances of the Secretariat of the Commissioner for Persons Missing Under Special Circumstances of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, during a briefing, as reported by UNN.
Details
When asked whether there was information that military personnel captured by "Wagnerites" were sold to Chechnya, Shydlovska replied: "Currently, we do not have such official information."
However, Shydlovska noted that over 60 individuals serving sentences specifically in a penal colony in Chechnya have been identified.
I mentioned that we have software, and our employees constantly conduct searches, including in penal colonies. Thus, our employees identified over 60 individuals, if I'm not mistaken, who are serving sentences specifically in a penal colony in Chechnya
Addition
In 2024, Petro Yatsenko, a representative of the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, told The Times that Chechen paramilitary formations were actively buying Ukrainian prisoners of war from other Russian military groups.
There were cases when they bought our wounded from the Russian army, delivered them to (the capital of Chechnya – ed.) Grozny, and then exchanged them for their own
Shydlovska stated that there is very little information regarding missing military personnel in 2022-2023 specifically in the Bakhmut direction.
The Media Initiative for Human Rights reported that Ukraine is investigating the fate of at least 3,000 military personnel who went missing in battles with the Wagner group.
According to "Mediazona", about 20,000 Wagnerites died in the battles for Bakhmut. The command does not report how many Ukrainian military personnel died. However, Ukrainian losses are significant. These include killed, missing, and captured. The fate of thousands of them remains unknown.