(Reuters) – The Ukrainian government on Wednesday urged citizens not to post details about soldiers and civilians who are missing, saying this could help Russia identify valuable prisoners and track down people who are trying to avoid capture.
Deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar said people were turning to social media to seek more information, especially about soldiers who were in captivity or missing.
“Why are such posts dangerous? The point is that this specific person may indeed be in captivity, but the enemy considers them to be a civilian,” she wrote on Telegram.
“Alternatively, the person may simply be hiding in temporarily occupied territories and looking for a way to return. By publishing the data and pictures of such people, you give the enemy a reference point for searches.”
Publishing details about prisoners’ personal lives, political views, social status or employment history greatly complicates the process of securing their release and often endangers their lives, she added.
“This encourages the enemy to scrutinize a particular person, and as a result, the demands for their exchange become higher, and the process itself becomes highly complicated,” she said, noting that Russia had so far swapped 1,030 Ukrainian men and women.
Ukrainians worried about people they cannot trace should instead turn to a special unit the defence ministry has set up to deal with prisoners of war, she said.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
