As fighting and battles continued between Russian and Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine, a local official loyal to Moscow confirmed that the number of prisoners had reached 8,000.
Today, Thursday, Luhansk official Rodion Miroshnik announced that the number of Ukrainian prisoners held in the “Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk”, which Russia has unilaterally recognized, is about eight thousand.
More number in Donetsk
He also added that “the largest number of prisoners are in the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, but there are enough here”, referring to Lugansk. “We now have about eight thousand, which is a large number,” she continued.
However, he added, “Hundreds are added literally every day,” as he said.
Trials and an unknown fate
These statements come after Donetsk separatist leader Denis Pushilin announced Wednesday that there are plans to prosecute what he described as Ukrainian Nazi extremists.
In turn, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko stressed that his country will not start a discussion on the exchange of prisoners with Kiev, until after the trial of the surrendered militants.
Meanwhile, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzia announced at a meeting of the UN Security Council that Ukrainian prisoners admitted the existence of higher orders to shoot unarmed civilians and said: “There are many confessions of captured soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were ordered to shoot civilians and not to take Russian soldiers as prisoners.
Interestingly, uncertainty surrounds the fate of Ukrainian soldiers and fighters who have recently surrendered to Russian forces, especially in the east of the country, after Moscow launched the second phase of its military operation in the Donbass region. .
It seeks to fully control that region after taking control of the southeastern city of Mariupol, with the aim of opening a land corridor between the east and Crimea, which it seized in 2014, in southern Ukraine.
Read More About: World News
