Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Thousands of Ukrainians live in agony as they search for missing loved ones
Iryna Reva stares at her phone, replaying the last video her 25-year-old son Vladyslav sent her from the front line before the volunteer soldier disappeared 19 months ago in a battle with Russian forces in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Reva is one of the thousands of Ukrainians desperately seeking news of loved ones who have disappeared in the two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. According to Ukraine’s National Police, more than 30,000 people have been reported missing in the last 24 months.
“Up to this day, I am searching for my son,” Reva said. “He is alive to me. Regardless of the circumstances, there is no evidence that he has perished.”
The last time Reva spoke to her son, she begged him not to take part in a battle the next morning. “Don’t go, say your arm hurts,” she told him over the phone.
“Mom, I’m sorry. I love you very much,” Vladyslav replied. “I’m going into battle. I don’t know if I’ll be back.
“I’ll be out of touch. Pray,” were his last words to her.
The missing include soldiers like Vladyslav lost on the battlefield, but also civilians and children who have vanished in a variety of circumstances. For many relatives, the agonizing uncertainty and relentless search for answers has already gone on for two years with no end in sight.
Inna Usenko left her hometown of Mariupol on a business trip the day before the war began in 2022. She lost contact with her brother, Herman Sikorskyi, on March 1 as Russia laid siege to the eastern city and thousands of civilians were trapped. Several weeks later, a Russian airstrike hit the house where he had lived.
“I don’t know what to think, whether he’s alive or not,” she said. “I understand perfectly well that if I were there, he would have come to me, and maybe something would have been different, so I feel guilty all the time.”
In an attempt to find her brother, Usenko filed a missing person’s report with the occupation authorities, the Russian Federation and the Russian Red Cross. From her home, which is now in Spain, she came to Ukraine to file a police report and provide DNA to Ukrainian authorities. Despite the efforts, neither side was able to provide her with any information.
“I would like, of course, to believe that he is alive,” Usenko said, adding that the uncertainty not only drains her but also affects close friends, relatives and his children.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says since February 2022 its team has been contacted more than 100,000 times by families searching for their loved ones.
“That doesn’t mean a hundred thousand missing people. But this gives you an idea of just the amount of suffering that this creates on both sides,” Achille Després, a spokesperson at the ICRC in Kyiv, said.