Despite various online posts, the families of prisoners of war generally do not have a clear understanding of how to proceed or which agencies to contact when they receive news that a family member has been taken prisoner.

Despite various online publications, the families of prisoners of war generally do not have a clear understanding of how to proceed or which agencies to contact when they receive news that a family member has been taken prisoner.
Today, to develop a step-by-step action plan, lawyers Andrii Yosypov and Marisa Skuba of Barristers held a meeting with the families of servicemembers who are believed to be held captive by the enemy.
It is commonly believed that there are so-called “lists” to which information about prisoners of war is added, after which authorized state agencies provide this information to representatives of the Russian Federation.
In reality, no such “lists” exist. Or, to be more precise, this approach is highly oversimplified.
In reality, there is a corresponding state registry maintained by the National Information Bureau (https://nib.gov.ua/uk/).
Family members can enter information about a prisoner of war into the registry either on their own or through a representative. There are various communication channels: email, a special online form, and Telegram.
In the future, it will be possible to track a servicemember’s status, for example, from “presumed to be in captivity” to “in captivity.”
It is important to note that for a person to be classified as “held captive,” this fact must be confirmed either by the enemy or by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
However, it should be noted that there are no priorities regarding which individuals are to be released, and the status of “likely in captivity” is rather tentative.
All information available in the National Information Bureau’s registries is used to coordinate the search for and release of prisoners of war, as well as in the process of negotiating exchanges and releases.
Following a meeting with the families of prisoners of war, we outlined a procedure for officially recording information regarding the captivity of their family members.
We determined that the National Information Bureau will be informed about individuals held captive, that the NIB will be informed about the importance of each individual servicemember, and that efforts will be made toexplaining to the families of service members the procedure for submitting requests regarding individuals held captive.