The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War presented the results of three projects aimed at combating Russian military and collaborators in Ukraine. These initiatives were launched with the support of the Ministry of Defense and the Main Intelligence Directorate.
This is reported by Kyiv24
Key projects for the exchange of prisoners of war and collaborators
The following projects were created: “I Want to Live” — for the voluntary surrender of Russian soldiers, “I Want to Find” — a single center for searching for Russian soldiers, and “I Want to Go to My Own” — a public list of individuals convicted of treason and collaboration who agreed to leave for the Russian Federation in exchange for the return of Ukrainian citizens from Russian captivity.
Deputy Head of the Coordination Headquarters Andriy Yusov reported that the website of the “I Want to Live” project has been visited over 50 million times, of which 43 million were from the Russian Federation. According to Yusov, this indicates a high level of interest from the target audience.
“This indicates that the interest from the target audience is indeed high. Over 53,000 applications received and over four hundred successful stories of how individuals either surrendered or joined the project to fight and joined the security and defense forces.”
As of May 1, the “I Want to Find” project received 198,895 applications, which were thoroughly verified and confirmed from citizens of the Russian Federation. Of these, 3,861 Russian soldiers have officially confirmed prisoner of war status.
Exchange of collaborators for Ukrainian prisoners
According to the headquarters, over 400 individuals convicted of treason and collaboration have already expressed a desire to leave for Russia under the “I Want to Go to My Own” project. Since the program began, as of May 1, 70 such collaborators have already been handed over to the Russian side in exchange for the return of Ukrainian citizens who were in captivity.
The Coordination Headquarters clarifies that these exchanges concern not only military personnel but also civilians who have become victims of illegal detention. On May 16, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the preparation of new large-scale stages of prisoner exchanges under the formula “1000 for 1000,” the first of which took place on May 15.