Privates, sergeants and officers: over 10 thousand Russians are in captivity

During the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 10,000 Russian army soldiers were captured.

This was reported in the project of the Coordination Headquarters “I Want to Live”.

As noted, the number of occupiers who fall into Ukrainian captivity is increasing every year. According to the project, an average of 60 to 90 Russians surrender every week, in August last year this figure reached 350 people.

At the same time, in 2025, more Russian army soldiers surrendered than in 2022 and 2023 combined. And since 2023, Russian soldiers have been captured more often than Ukrainian ones.

The largest number of occupiers of the Defense Forces were captured in the Pokrovsky, Bakhmutsky, Pologovsky districts and in the Kursk region.

Most of the prisoners are privates with contract service uniforms, 13% are sergeants, and almost 3% are officers. The highest rank is colonel.

“Only 7% have higher education, while 30% did not even finish school. Before the war, 38% were unemployed. Almost half have children, including 8% with three or more. Hundreds of people were captured with serious chronic diseases, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, diabetes, and mental disorders,” the report says.

The share of foreign mercenaries in captivity increased in 2025. However, Russia is reluctant to take them back and does not ask foreigners for an exchange.

“As part of the exchanges for Ukrainian Defenders, a little more than 6,000 prisoners of war were returned to Russia, more than half of them in 2025. At least 237 former Russian prisoners of war are known to have died or gone missing after the exchange, having been re-sent to the front. Four Russian soldiers are currently in captivity for the second time,” the project informed.

As a reminder, Ukrainian military recently captured two Colombian citizens who fought on the side of Russia near Pokrovskoe . They were detained by soldiers of the 425th separate assault regiment “Skelya” of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Earlier , on December 8, two servicemen of the 67th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine captured six Russian occupiers during a strike and search operation in the Oleksandrivka direction.