KYIV - Ukraine said on April 16 it had identified almost 37,000 people, including military personnel, who are unaccounted for since Russia’s invasion began in February 2022, warning that the actual figure may be “much higher”.

Calculating the exact number of missing is difficult, as Russian forces still occupy around a fifth of the country and neither side regularly releases data on military casualties.

“Almost 37,000 people are considered missing – children, civilians and military. These figures may be much higher,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said.

He said Ukraine and the Red Cross had identified about 1,700 people “illegally detained” by Russia, which he accused of “abducting civilians” since 2014, when war with Moscow-backed separatists in the country’s east first broke out.

Human rights groups have accused Russia of forced disappearances and abducting children in occupied areas, accusations the Kremlin has rejected.

Large swathes of Ukrainian territory have remained under Russian occupation since the beginning of the war, which has devastated whole towns and cities and killed thousands.

The United Nations’ human rights office said in its March report that since Russia’s invasion at least 10,810 people had been killed, including more than 8,000 in areas controlled by Ukraine.

The actual number of casualties is likely “considerably higher” and difficult to verify, as independent observers are blocked from accessing occupied areas, it added.

In a rare statement on military losses, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in February that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the first two years of the war. AFP