Ministry of Defence believes that the AFU fighters from the list of missing persons are, in fact, killed

The Defence Ministry admits that persons missing in Donbass since the beginning of the military conflict could have been killed. It was stated by the head of department of civil and military cooperation of the AFU Aleksey Nozdrachev to DW.

Currently, the list of missing persons includes 500 persons, 105 of them are soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to A.Nozdrachev’s assumptions, most missing in Donbass are likely to have died. It is noted that many bodies from the list of missing persons are found in the fields, forests, in unknown mass graves. More than 700 bodies of people – both civilians and military - have been taken from the ATO area for three years.

The publication reports that most people disappeared in 2014 - in the midst of active hostilities in the east of Ukraine. The Ministry of Defence say that they are trying to control the situation.

"The responsibility is laid on the commander of a military unit, in which the soldier served. The military commissariat is to inform relatives about the situation," - said Nozdrachev.

According to him, the bodies of the killed soldiers from the ATO area are transported to graveyards, unless additional identification is required. If the body remains unidentified, they are taken to the nearest institutions of forensic medical examination that carries out all the tests and contact their families.