Several hundred Ukrainian military servicewomen are considered prisoners of war. Ukraine demands their return without any exchanges, as stipulated by the Geneva Convention.
This was announced during a Saturday briefing by members of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Bohdan Okhrimenko and Viktoriya Tsymbaliuk, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
“Several hundred Ukrainian military servicewomen are in enemy dungeons,” Okhrimenko reported. “The Coordination HQ and other relevant government bodies are working to ensure their return as soon as possible.”
Tsymbaliuk added that Ukraine, for its part, adheres to the norms of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits holding in custody military servicewomen, demanding a mirror attitude from Russia.
“Ukraine adheres to the Geneva Convention. Russian military servicewomen who had been captured were then repatriated. We demand this from the Russian side as well: to return the captured women without any preconditions or exchanges,” official said.
According to Tsymbaliuk, unlike military servicewomen, the exact number of Ukrainian civilian women held by Russia remains unclear. At the same time, the authorities are working to clarify the number and get all of those women home. The Coordination HQ considers the return of more than 300 Ukrainian children to be only an intermediate result.
As Ukrinform reported earlier, Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, said at a press conference in Kyiv that an “all-for-all” exchange with Russia can only apply to the military. It will not be possible to return civilian hostages to their homeland in this way, he admitted.
Source: Hundreds of Ukraine’s female soldiers remain in Russian captivity - Coordination HQ
