1/ Repatriated Russian POWs are said to be routinely treated as deserters on their return. A chaotic personnel system means that the Russian army is often incapable of identifying who is captured, missing, deserted, or dead, depriving relatives of compensation payments. ⬇️ 
2/ The Russian journalist and blogger Anastasia Kashevarova, a former adviser to State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin who now advocates on behalf of soldiers and their families, has posted a lengthy commentary on the problems of determining the status of individual soldiers.
3/ She says that "the most common problem that shows the chaos in the army from the very bottom [is that] FOR MONTHS, relatives of [soldiers] have not been able to obtain the real status of their fighter – captured, missing in action, AWOL, died, active."
4/ "Due to the fact that the headquarters of military units are extremely negligent in registering military personnel, there is complete confusion with documents, payments, receiving military allowances, issuing various certificates and extracts ...
5/ "The dead and missing are recognised as prisoners of war or in the ranks. In reality, prisoners of war are not given the status of ‘prisoners of war’, and after the exchange in the military unit they are told that they are deserters.
6/ "Military units recognise a soldier as a prisoner of war on the basis of deepfakes from the Ukrainian side. Complete confusion and lack of involvement of the authorities in the status of fighters.
7/ "According to the existing legislation, the command must notify his relatives of any change in the soldier's status within 10 days from the date of his death, capture or recognition as missing.
8/ "This also determines the procedure for making payments to family members of a serviceman who served in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the event of his death, [or] recognition as missing or captured.
9/ "In practice, families often cannot obtain official information about the current status of a serviceman for months.
10/ "In addition to the moral side of the issue, this makes it impossible to reissue payments of monetary allowances to the account of family members, as well as to receive a number of social benefits and guarantees.
11/ "Sometimes it is possible to obtain official information about the status through the military prosecutor's office, …
12/ … but this creates an excessive burden on supervisory authorities where the coordinated work of military units and military registration and enlistment offices would be sufficient.
13/ "Apparently, the units do not notify not only their relatives but also their superiors about changes in the current status of a war participant. Accordingly, the information does not go further: to military enlistment offices and to the hotline.
14/ "The statuses on the hotline, in the military enlistment office and in reality often contradict each other. Moreover, the status of a fighter provided by the Ministry of Defence hotline can change several times a day, from prisoner of war to ‘in the ranks’ and to missing.
15/ "The issue of recognizing fighters as prisoners of war is acute. At the moment, units do not have common standards by which this status is assigned.
16/ "It often happens that a fighter is killed, but he is assigned the status of a prisoner of war based on false information, deepfakes from the Ukrainian side or simply due to chaos between departments.
17/ "Or, on the contrary, a fighter who is actually in captivity and who gets in touch with his family is not recognized as a prisoner of war, and when he is exchanged, he is accused of being a deserter.
18/ We have been dealing with this issue daily for almost two years now and are forced to state the complete absence of a well-established system among the responsible bodies for assigning a particular status to a fighter, …
19/ … as well as for notifying and informing not only family members but also the higher command about this status."
Kashevarova complains that Ukraine is exploiting this situation for "the recruitment and manipulation of relatives of fighters of the Russian Armed Forces."
Kashevarova complains that Ukraine is exploiting this situation for "the recruitment and manipulation of relatives of fighters of the Russian Armed Forces."
20/ "For example, a soldier died, but until the body is retrieved, he is listed as missing. At the same time, no one explains to the family what the status of missing means. Many people think - definitely alive. But NO!!!
21/ "❗️ Missing in action in 95% of cases is a deceased person whose body has not yet been evacuated, or will never be found.
It is possible that he is buried in a grave with a number. It is possible that the body was torn apart by a shell.
It is possible that he is buried in a grave with a number. It is possible that the body was torn apart by a shell.
22/ "It is possible that the enemy tortured him and in order to hide the traces of the crime, the body was 'pulverised' or burned. It is possible that there is simply no way to evacuate it. It is possible that there is no time or people to evacuate the bodies.
23/ "There are many such stories. I saw a body driven into the road, our equipment drove over it, this fighter became part of the road.
And until there is a body, the relatives deceive themselves with false hopes.
And until there is a body, the relatives deceive themselves with false hopes.
24/ "No one from the state structures talks to the families of the fighters in a mature, state-like manner. Everyone is afraid to tell the truth.
25/ "No one describes the realities of war, because there has been a complete infantilization of the state and society, people live in a virtual world and do not want to see reality.
26/ "And the reality is that people are killed in war, and we are not moving forward everywhere, and we have losses. And these losses include your relatives.
But the families are looking for clues, what if he is alive? And this is psychologically understandable.
But the families are looking for clues, what if he is alive? And this is psychologically understandable.
27/ "And government agencies lie to their families, sowing in them a painful and distorted perception of reality, in order to get publicity, or to be good, or simply to be left alone.
28/ "We had several Russian families who shouted that a captured Buryat was their fighter. And their fighters were pure blue-eyed, fair-haired Slavs.
29/ "Women go to fortune tellers, considering it proof that "the whole village saw a photo of this prisoner – and he is ours", and the prisoner's face is not even visible, it is taped up.
30/ "Nobody pays attention to the fact that the fighter disappeared near Avdiivka, and the photo from captivity is Zaporizhia. In the video, it is winter, and he disappeared in the summer.
31/ "But we compare everything, request information, conduct our own investigations and create a real database of prisoners and missing persons. WE TELL PEOPLE THE TRUTH! And we ask them to donate DNA, because our defenders must be mourned and buried!! ...
32/ "Meanwhile, the family receives a formal reply from the military police that their fighter is in captivity, and the Human Rights Commissioner, based on the family's guesses, also states that work is underway to free the fighter from captivity.
33/ "Families, because of the lies of various structures, because of the disgrace with the official status, refuse to bury their relatives and begin to believe only the Ukrainian side.
34/ "Why do the families of the war participants need this lie? Because many structures lie, do not work, are engaged in formal replies – Ukraine creates deepfakes, photoshops photos and lies to relatives that their fighter is alive and in captivity.
35/ "In exchange, [Ukraine] demands money, information, to go to a rally/picket, to record a video against the president of our country." /end
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