Russia uses POWs as a political weapon against Kyiv

The last major prisoner exchange was in August, but Ukrainian families are getting calls from POWs held by Russia asking them to protest against the Ukrainian government.

The last time Valentyna Tkachenko, a 35-year-old mother of two from Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, saw her husband Serhii was just before Russia invaded her country.

Serhii, a National Guard soldier, was captured on February 24 of last year, the day Moscow launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine. His unit was guarding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant when it was attacked by the Russians. When the Russian military retreated from Chernobyl and the rest of the Kyiv region at the end of March, they took Serhii and 167 other POWs with them.

Since then, the wives of the captured soldiers have only heard from them once — a short handwritten note: “I am alive, everything is OK,” sent more than six months after they were taken prisoner.