Especially children

37,000 people have disappeared since the war in Ukraine

37,000 people have been missing in Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022.

(Bild: AFP)

According to the authorities, around 37,000 people have disappeared since the start of the war in Ukraine. These include "children, civilians and soldiers", according to Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinez. The number of unreported cases could be even higher.

As the Russian authorities occupy almost 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, it is difficult to make an estimate. Lubinez assumes that around 1,700 Ukrainians are being "illegally detained" in Russia. In addition, around 20,000 children have been abducted to the neighboring country. The census is still ongoing, according to the human rights commissioner.

So far, only 147 civilians have returned. The authorities are working to find more and bring them home, Lubinez wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

You can see Dmytro Lubinez's Facebook post here.

One million without electricity
The war began in February 2022. The Russian army is currently regularly bombing the Ukrainian power grid. Around one million people are without electricity. Night-time storms in the country have caused additional outages.

According to Selenskyj, his country urgently needs defensive missiles to prevent the destruction. On April 11, for example, the important Trypilska coal-fired power plant in the Kiev region was destroyed by Russian missiles. "Eleven missiles came flying in. We destroyed the first seven. The other four destroyed Trypilska - why? Because there were zero missiles. We had no more rockets to defend Trypilska," said Selenskyj.

Law on mobilization signed
On Tuesday, the politician signed the controversial law on the mobilization of armed forces. The Ukrainian army is currently having great difficulty recruiting more soldiers. The mobilization law provides for harsher penalties for conscientious objectors and a simplified conscription procedure. In addition, a paragraph was deleted that provided for the discharge of soldiers who had been deployed for three years.