Changing nature of the war has complicated the search for missing persons - General Staff

The changing nature of the war has significantly complicated the process of searching for missing persons, said Oleh Neshchadim, representative of the Central Department of Civil-Military Cooperation of the General Staff, during a briefing, reports UNN correspondent.

Details 

"There are complications now, because the war of 2024 and the nature of this war is not even similar to the war of 2025. The nature of the war is changing, new methods of warfare are being used, the amount of electronic warfare is increasing, more robotic automated complexes and drones are being involved. Therefore, if in 2023 it was possible for a search team to approach to work out some locations directly close to the line of combat, now this distance has increased to 5 km, it is impossible to approach, because entire swarms of drones are flying, and without individual electronic warfare equipment for equipment it is impossible, because all personnel of the search teams will be lost," Neshchadim explained.

Another problem, according to Neshchadim, is that most of the locations of missing persons are in temporarily occupied territory, which is not controlled by Ukraine.

"This is resolved by the fact that when we work directly on the ground with our dead soldiers, missing persons, we also collect the bodies of representatives of the aggressor, which are then transferred within the framework of repatriation. And in this way we can return our dead heroes home," Neshchadim added.

Recall 

As of February 2025, 62,948 people in Ukraine were considered missing under special circumstances. And the whereabouts of 10,291 people have been established or identified as dead.