Ukraine Says Russia Uses Prisoner Lists to Spread Disinformation | Ukraine news

Behind the polished public statements and carefully staged promises, there is a quieter, more painful reality: thousands of families are waiting for news of the people they love, and the process of bringing them home is being dragged into the mud of political manipulation. On paper, Russia says it is ready to exchange prisoners of war. Its officials appear on television, publish lists, and speak in solemn tones about the importance of reuniting people with their families. But behind those public promises, officials familiar with the mechanics of these negotiations describe something very different — a pattern of obstruction, delay, and disinformation that keeps families suspended in a state of unbearable uncertainty. The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War has now spoken out clearly about this pattern, warning that Russia is intensifying its disinformation campaign around prisoner exchanges, not to solve the problem, but to blur it. The truth, as the Headquarters sees it, is that those who claim to want the exchanges most are often the ones placing obstacles in the way. This is not about diplomacy for its own sake. It is about human beings, mostly young men and women, who have been held in captivity for months or even years, separated from their families, their lives frozen in time while the world negotiates over them.

The latest episode in this painful saga centers on a post by Russian Ombudsman Tatyana Lantratova, who circulated lists of Ukrainian captives and pointed an accusing finger at Kyiv, claiming that Ukraine was unwilling to conduct exchanges. It is a familiar move, but no less cruel for being predictable. The Coordination Headquarters responded directly, calling out this action for what it is: another attempt to manipulate the issue of prisoner exchanges and to shift blame for a process that Russia itself has done so much to stall. The Headquarters stressed that this is not the first time Moscow has used lists of prisoners as a propaganda weapon. Publicly, Russian authorities say they are ready to sit at the table and negotiate. Privately, they refuse to take the concrete steps that would actually make an exchange possible. One glaring example is Russia’s refusal to establish joint medical commissions that would be allowed access to the places where captives are held. This is not a technical detail. Without such commissions, there can be no independent verification of the condition of prisoners, no reliable information about who is alive and who is not, and no way to ensure that the most vulnerable captives are prioritized for release. Russia also continues to ignore Ukraine’s repeated proposal for a large-scale “all for all” exchange, a proposal that would, in one sweeping humanitarian act, bring home thousands of people from both sides. Instead of engaging with that idea, Moscow appears to prefer the slow, agonizing drip of partial exchanges and public accusations.

Ukraine, for its part, has been doing what it can with the tools it has. The Coordination Headquarters has never received from Russia a complete and honest list of all Ukrainian prisoners of war — servicemembers, civilians, and citizens of other countries who took up arms to defend Ukraine and ended up in Russian captivity. Without that list, every step is guesswork, every negotiation is built on incomplete information, and every family is left wondering whether their loved one is even among the official records. Yet Ukraine has not stopped trying. Through painstaking analytical work, gathering fragments of information from released prisoners, aerial imagery, satellite data, social media, and the testimony of witnesses, the Coordination Headquarters has identified approximately two hundred locations where Ukrainians may be held. These include prisons, penal colonies, and makeshift detention basements scattered across Russia and the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Each of these locations represents a small piece of a larger puzzle, a clue in the search for missing people. But identifying a location is not the same as getting access to it. Ukraine can chart these places, document their coordinates, and raise the alarm, but it cannot force Russia to open the doors. Meanwhile, families are left to wait, often for months without a single piece of news, not knowing whether their loved one is cold, hungry, sick, or alive.

The contrast between the two sides in how prisoners are treated could not be starker. Ukraine currently operates five special camps for Russian prisoners of war. These facilities are organized in accordance with the requirements of the Third Geneva Convention, and international humanitarian organizations have regular access to them. The prisoners there are fed, housed, and given medical care. They are not shown on television as trophies, and they are not used as bargaining chips in political performances. The same cannot be said for Ukrainian captives held in Russia. The Coordination Headquarters has described conditions that fall far below any acceptable standard of humanity. Ukrainian prisoners are denied proper medical care, left to endure cold, hunger, and neglect, and subjected to abuse and torture. These are not isolated incidents but part of a broader pattern, a way of breaking people’s minds and bodies while their families wait helplessly at home. Russia, the Headquarters notes, uses Ukrainian captives not just as pawns in negotiations but as instruments of psychological pressure against their relatives. The threat of death or mistreatment is deliberately kept alive to extract something from the families, whether that is political concessions, information, or simply the cruel satisfaction of watching them suffer. And then there is the grotesque detail reported by released prisoners themselves: the Russian prisoners held in Ukraine are fattened up before exchanges in special cells, so that when they return they look healthy and well cared for. It is a cynical staging, a calculated illusion designed to make it appear that Russia treats its own captives well once they come home, while the reality of their treatment inside Russia remains hidden from view.

Despite all of this, preparations for new exchanges continue. The people working at the Coordination Headquarters, at the Security Service of Ukraine, and in the many other organizations involved in this effort, keep moving forward, one single file at a time, one name, one face, one family’s hope. They know that for every prisoner still held, every day in captivity is a direct threat to life. They do not have the luxury of despair. The return of every captive is not just a political achievement — it is a rescue from what can only be described as a life-threatening situation. Andriy Pasternak, the head of the Joint Center for Coordinating the Search and Release of Prisoners of War at the Security Service of Ukraine, has reported receiving testimony from people who have been released about the special cells where Russian prisoners are kept before an exchange. According to these testimonies, the Russians make sure the prisoners look well-fed and calm, in order to project an image of proper detention conditions. It is a strange and sad kind of theater. But for the families of Ukrainian captives, there is no theater, only the harsh reality of waiting and hoping. They are not receiving visits from international observers. They are not being shown images of their loved ones well-groomed and rested. They are being told, again and again, to be patient, to trust the process, to believe that something is being done behind the scenes, even when the scenes themselves are clouded by disinformation.

In the end, the issue of prisoner exchanges cannot be reduced to political strategy, to announcements, or to official statements read aloud in formal rooms. It is a deeply human issue, perhaps the most human issue of all — the question of who gets to come home, and who is left behind. The disinformation that Russia spreads around this subject is not just a distortion of facts; it is an assault on the dignity of the people affected by it. Every fake list, every false accusation, every delayed response is another twist of the knife for a mother who hasn’t heard from her son, for a wife who doesn’t know if her husband is still alive, for a child who is afraid they will never see their father again. The international community needs to look beyond the official rhetoric and see the mechanics of obstruction. It needs to ask why one side is willing to talk endlessly while refusing the very measures that would make exchanges safe and possible. It needs to understand that behind every name on a list there is a whole world — a life, a family, a future. And most of all, it needs to apply pressure where it matters, so that the people whose lives hang in the balance are no longer treated as instruments of a cruel game. Until then, the waiting continues. But so does the work. And for every family that still has hope, the work is what matters.