Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are missing- Here's how Ukraine is trying to find them

The last day Valentyna Ocheretna heard from her son, Nazar, he sent her a short message: “Hi, Mom. Everything’s fine. I won’t be available, probably for a long time. Maybe a week, maybe a month. Don’t worry.” That was on March 30, 2022, at the height of the Mariupol siege. Since then, nearly three years later, there’s been no sign of life from him.

This is how CNN opens its report describing the phenomenon of missing Ukrainian soldiers. While Ukraine tries to market success to the world, releasing (admittedly stunning) propaganda videos of battlefield victories, behind the scenes, the reality is far less glamorous. Ukraine has retreated from both Kursk and the eastern front, losing many soldiers along the way. And some simply vanish.

Nazar, a 33-year-old combat medic, is one of thousands of soldiers and civilians who disappeared during Ukraine’s battles. Official records list nearly 60,000 as missing under special circumstances, though experts estimate the true number is much higher.

More than a million soldiers from both sides combined have been lost to their armies, through death, injury, or simply because no one knows where they are.

Estimates suggest there are also significant desertions, including from the battlefield, an offense carrying harsh penalties under Ukrainian law.

To tackle desertions, the Ukrainian government and military periodically offer amnesty operations for soldiers who fled their bases, but not all return, to say the least. However, it’s worth noting that most of the missing are not deserters but soldiers who likely fought to their probable deaths, their bodies unrecovered.

Life Between Hope and Uncertainty

Back to Nazar. On April 12, 2022, Valentyna received an official notice: “Your son is missing, possibly captured.” And that’s it. Since then, she hasn’t heard from him and doesn’t know his fate. The uncertainty is agonizing, eating at her soul from morning to night, she describes.

For three years, she has searched for him, gathering scraps of information, trying to piece together what happened. But he’s not on any prisoner list, and no one can say for sure if he’s alive or dead. Even the most skilled private investigator couldn’t locate someone lost on the battlefield, fallen into a trench, or blown apart by an enemy missile.

“If a person is on the missing list, there are two main possibilities: either he’s a prisoner of the Russians or he’s dead,” says Artur Dobroserdov, Ukraine’s Commissioner for Persons Missing Under Special Circumstances. They prefer not to mention the third option of desertion.

The war, sparked by Russia’s invasion in February 2022, has since evolved. Combat has grown more sophisticated, with widespread drone use complicating body retrieval from battlefields. Ukraine runs an organized system to recover the fallen: over 7,000 bodies have been returned home so far. But the path to identification and burial is long and painful, as described by CNN.

The Difficult Path to Identifying the Fallen

Last February, during a body exchange between Russia and Ukraine, 757 Ukrainian soldiers’ remains were returned. Yet even then, families couldn’t bury them immediately. The identification process is complex, with bodies often returning severely damaged, dismembered, or burned. CNN’s grim accounts recall the horrific process endured by families of hostages returned after being murdered by brutal Hamas terrorists.

“The biggest challenge is when we get a single package containing remains of dozens of people,” explains Ruslan Abbasov, deputy director of Ukraine’s National Forensic Science Center. “We can’t tell if it’s one person or 20.” Thus, every fragment undergoes meticulous DNA testing.

Despite the hardship, Ukrainian scientists and forensic experts persist. For the first time this February, authorities used 3D facial reconstruction technology to identify remains. “If someone recognizes a relative or acquaintance’s face, we ask them to contact us,” a public appeal stated. Ukraine also employs facial recognition software like Clearview AI to locate captives in photos posted on Russian networks.

Here’s how it works: Russian soldiers, and sometimes the army itself, post videos of Ukrainian soldier arrests, sometimes featuring brutal abuses hard to watch. Ukraine has set up a special command center that analyzes every such video found online, on social media or websites, overlaying them with artificial intelligence software. Sometimes, it yields positive results.

“I Know He’s Alive”

While the government fights to bring its sons home, many families have become “private armies” of searchers. They scour news clips, social media, and images of captives from Russian prisoner camps. Valentyna Ocheretna is no exception: she’s collected testimonies from three witnesses who say they saw her son in Russian captivity.

“They identified him from photos, remembered his nickname, and told me about a tattoo he had. One said he treated his wounds for two weeks after the Russians burned a Ukrainian symbol tattoo off his body,” she recounts. Testimonies suggest he was held in three locations: Volgograd, Russia’s Sakha region, and Olenivka prison in Donetsk. Valentyna takes solace in signs her son is alive, hoping for future prisoner swaps.

But his name doesn’t appear in Russia’s official databases. Even DNA tests she conducted showed no matches. Valentyna remains convinced: “If there’s no match, it means he’s alive. Maybe he’s in a prison no one has discovered yet.”

Russia, for its part, doesn’t offer information it isn’t required to, preferring to keep the option to later claim it never held a soldier by this or that name. International war laws and the Geneva Convention are clear, and as long as it doesn’t acknowledge a soldier’s presence, it isn’t bound to him or the law.

An Endless Wait

For three years, she’s attended every meeting of missing soldiers’ families, joined every Telegram group on the topic, and spoken with anyone from her son’s unit. She holds an old video of him laughing and talking with friends. “I watch it several times a day. I know every second, every eye twitch, every hand movement.”

She, like thousands of other families, awaits a comprehensive prisoner exchange deal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky repeatedly states he’s ready for a full swap: all Ukrainian captives for all Russians. But so far, Russia hasn’t responded.

“I’m not asking for anything else,” Valentyna says. “Just bring my son back to me.”

Meanwhile, the war drags on. Despite Trump’s attempts to broker a ceasefire in some form, all efforts have failed so far. Both sides keep raining fire, including on energy facilities they pledged not to hit, and the end seems distant.

Many wonder if, after three years, it isn’t time for Ukraine to yield to Putin’s demands to save what’s left of it, while others say Ukraine is just Putin’s first step toward conquering Europe. Will we still be writing about the Russia-Ukraine war in ten years? Time will tell.

Kikar HaShabbat contributed to this article.