Luhansk claims around 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers taken POWs in Donbass region amid war

Ukrainian prisoners in the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics (LNR and DNR) taken prisoners of war now stands at about 8,000, Ambassador of the Lugansk People’s Republic Rodion Miroshnik told the Soloviev Live on May 26. "There are a lot of Ukrainian POWs,” claimed Miroshnik, adding that more Ukrianian service members have been captured on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic. “We also have a lot, and now the total number is around 8,000. This is a lot, and literally hundreds are being added daily," Luhansk People’s Republic’s Rodion Miroshnik said. 

'There will be more POWs in eastern Donbass region..': Luhansk Ambassador

Miroshnik further warned that there will be more POWs in the eastern Donbass region as their commanders are deploying the units of territorial defense in the region. Russian troops recently shifted focus to Ukraine’s eastern oblasts to force Kyiv into surrendering part of the country’s territory. Ukrainian army units have been concentrated heavily in eastern Ukraine, the contentious region where they have been fighting with Moscow-backed separatists for over eight years. Moscow has been planning to encircle and destroy the Ukrainian forces in the country’s industrial heartland to potentially split it into two. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asserted in a recorded address that his country will not cede even an inch of the Ukrainian territory to Russia as fighting continues to rage. 

"Currently, there is an active advancement towards Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, there are a lot of small fortified areas, and, in my opinion, the number will grow,” said Ambassador of the Luhansk People’s Republic Rodion Miroshnik.

Luhansk ambassador went on to iterate that the number of Ukraine POWs and those killed will increase, since now instead of the trained units of Ukraine’s armed forces or the nationalist battalions, the territorial defense battalions are being deployed to the frontline.” The ambassador asserted that those fighters are the people who were handed foreign weapons. “And they were essentially promised that they will defend their vegetable lots, stand at roadblocks somewhere about two thousand kilometers away from the line of engagement,” Slavyansk, Kramatorsk said. These fighters were brought to Donbass in a provocative move, and now they either surrender or die on a rather large scale because they cannot wage this war, he added. 

The fighting in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics has intensified with massive bombardments and shelling by Russia’s troops and the Ukrainian armed forces. Ahead of the invasion on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin had declared the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts as “independent.” Russian State Duma and the Federation Council on February 22 ratified laws acting in response to heads of the Donbass republics, according to Putin’s televised speech. Putin justified the “special military operation” saying that it was to “demilitarize” Ukraine and a response to genocide committed by Ukraine on Russian speaking population for eight years.