275,000 Missing in Russia-Ukraine War, Red Cross Says

About 275,000 people have been reported missing in connection with Russia’s war against Ukraine, while the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) receives roughly 10,000 new tracing requests each month. ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger disclosed the figures in comments to Russian newspaper Vedomosti published Tuesday.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The organization does not provide a breakdown of how many missing people are Ukrainian or Russian because information collected during its tracing operations is confidential. “Over the past four years, we have made significant progress on humanitarian issues,” Spoljaric Egger said, adding that more families had received information about the fate of missing relatives. The total does not represent only confirmed battlefield disappearances. It includes people reported missing in connection with the international armed conflict, including military personnel, prisoners of war, and civilians whose relatives have lost contact with them. The sharp rise in the recorded number is also partly linked to a change in the ICRC’s methodology. Since 2025, the organization has counted both formalized tracing cases and preliminary requests that have not yet completed the documentation process. The change increased the overall number of cases in its system and means the latest figure cannot be directly compared with earlier totals. The ICRC receives information about prisoners of war through official lists exchanged by Russia and Ukraine. Its representatives may also visit detention facilities and collect oral or written messages for prisoners’ relatives. Other Topics of Interest Russian Ex-Mayor Who Left Prison for Ukraine War Dies From Combat Wounds Former Belgorod Mayor Konstantin Polezhayev joined Russia’s military after receiving a five-year sentence for accepting a multimillion-ruble bribe. Such visits can allow the organization to confirm that a person previously listed as missing is alive, although the ICRC has repeatedly faced criticism in Ukraine over limited access to Ukrainian prisoners held by Russia. Separate Ukrainian data indicates that Russian families are searching for large numbers of soldiers who disappeared during Moscow’s invasion. Ukraine’s “I Want to Find” project said in August that it had received 210,766 requests concerning missing Russian military personnel since its launch in January 2024. The largest number of requests that included a location was connected to the Pokrovsk district of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where relatives sought information about approximately 29,000 Russian troops, primarily reported missing during 2024 and 2025. More than 12,000 requests were linked to the Bakhmut district, while over 8,000 concerned Russian personnel reported missing in Russia’s Kursk region. Ukrainian forces controlled part of that region from August 2024 until April 2025. Russian internet users searched the phrase “missing in the special military operation” on Yandex almost 120,000 times in July 2026, according to search data cited by the Belarusian outlet Vot Tak. The ICRC has warned that determining the fate of people missing during armed conflicts can take decades, even after the fighting ends. The Geneva Conventions require warring parties to record information about detainees and cooperate in efforts to locate missing people. Kyiv Post is Ukraine’s first and oldest English news organization, reporting since 1995. Its international reach – 97% of readers are outside of Ukraine – make it truly Ukraine’s global voice.