KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — 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.
Valentyna Yeremenko, 95, sits in her daughter’s home while waiting for the return of her husband Mykola in Bucha, Kyiv region, on Feb. 11, 2024. Mykola Yeremenko, 96, a veteran of World War II, went missing during the Russian occupation of Irpin, Kyiv region on March 19, 2022. Valentyna, who celebrated their 70-year wedding anniversary with Mykola just a few years ago, longs for his return. “We haven’t heard anything about Mykola, only the tear-off calendar on the wall remains, and March 19 is the last day a leaf was torn off… that’s when he vanished,” said Valentyna’s daughter Liudmila Yeremenko reflecting on his disappearance. This is not the only tragedy in Valentyna’s family. During the Russian occupation in March 2022, a sniper killed her granddaughter Tetiana Yeremenko. She was 47 years old. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
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.
For relatives looking for information, the official search often begins with submitting a DNA sample. Andrii Levytskyi, head of forensics at the National Police’s main investigation department, said more than 18,000 DNA samples of relatives of servicemen and civilians have been collected and processed.
DNA is a vital part of establishing the status of the missing person, especially if they are military. Even if fellow soldiers said they witnessed a soldier killed in battle, it’s not enough to confirm the death, said Petro Yatsenko, the head of a press office at the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of POWs.
“Until we have the body, until we have DNA analysis, this person will have the status of missing,” he said. He said they have had cases in which soldiers were found wounded in captivity, despite testimony from their comrades that they were killed in battle.
Over the past two years, numerous volunteer projects have arisen to aid in the search for missing people, often serving as a last resort for relatives who receive no official information from authorities.
Mariia Reshetova, who runs the Search for the Missing project under the Kateryna Osadcha Foundation, said they have around 1,000 open cases and have already closed hundreds.
She said that while they receive new applications daily, the influx has dwindled compared to the initial months of the war when the project was launched. However, the geography of missing civilians has not changed. Cases originate from both liberated regions like Kyiv, and those still occupied. Many open cases relate to people missing in Mariupol.
“You can’t stop searching … because there is always a chance that some information will be found,” Reshetova said.
Tetiana Khvostenko’s husband Oleh was last seen in the summer of 2022 in the occupied city of Dniprorudne in the Zaporizhzhia region when the Russian military detained him as he went to pick up his car. From that point, he vanished.
Oleh’s relatives, who remained in the occupied territory and therefore can’t be named for security concerns, tried to get information about why he was detained. They visited the military commandant’s office many times learning he’d been handed over to the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB. From there, the trail went cold.
For the past year and seven months, Tetiana and her son Klim have been living in limbo, devoid of any new information about Oleh’s fate.
“For 36 years, I’ve had a man by my side. And now he is gone. It’s like being without an arm or a leg, I don’t know. It’s hard,” Tetiana said.
The Khvostenkos hope that Oleh is alive, perhaps detained like thousands of other civilians from occupied territories held without charge in Russian prisons and areas of seized territories as an investigation by The Associated Press conducted last year found.
The family contacted the relevant institutions on both sides, international organizations including the Red Cross, and even directly inquired into places of captivity, to see if Oleh was being held there.
“We’ve actually reached out to a lot of places, and the responses are pretty much the same,” said Oleh’s son Klim.
“And that’s what makes it all the more difficult because there’s no result. We’re not a step closer,” he said.
Larysa, 31, with her 4-year-old daughter, Olha, await the return of her husband Mykola at their apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine. Mykola, a Ukrainian serviceman with the 30th Mechanized Brigade went missing during fighting at the frontline in Ozarianivka, Donetsk region on Nov. 2, 2022. “My husband was taken captive by Wagner forces, but I don’t know anything about his fate or whereabouts,” Larysa said, her voice heavy with uncertainty. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Maria Lezhnova, 52, sits surrounded by her pets as she waits for her son Hryhorii inside her apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine. Hryhorii Polevyi, 29, a military medic with the 120th Battalion went missing at the frontline in Mayorsk, Donetsk region, on November 4, 2022. The day before he vanished, he sent a message to his mother saying simply: “Love you very much, I will go without connection for some time.” (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Olena Diachenko, 38, along with her children Maksym, 13, Margaryta, 10, and Myroslava, 5, await the return of husband and father Oleksandr in Mala Ofirna, Kyiv region. “Children don’t wish for presents on their birthdays; they wish for their father to come back,” Olena said. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Natalia, 35, waits for her missing husband Yuriy at her apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine. Yuriy, 39, a Ukrainian serviceman, disappeared during fighting against Russian forces on Aug. 14, 2022 near Bakhmut, Donetsk region. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Liubov Opanasenko, 72, sits at home waiting for the return of her husband Oleksandr in Svitilna, Kyiv region, Ukraine. A local resident Oleksandr, 71, chose to remain behind when his wife and son evacuated. He disappeared on March 9, 2022, during the Russian occupation of Svitilna. “Hope is all that’s left, but it’s there. Whenever someone returns from captivity, I immediately look to see if it’s him,” Liubov said. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Daryna Herasymenko, 26, waits for her missing husband Serhii in an apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine. Serhii Herasymenko, 29, a Ukrainian serviceman with the 46th Separate Air Assault Brigade disappeared during fighting at the frontline near Bakhmut, Donetsk region on Dec. 10, 2022. “Mentally, I am still in December (2022),” said Daryna, who has been with Serhii for seven years. “All I know is that they went on the assault, and that’s it,” she added. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Nina Kovalyk, 47, sits in her apartment while she waits for the return of her brother Andrii in Kyiv, Ukraine. Andrii, 48, a Ukrainian serviceman from the Territorial Defense disappeared during the fighting against Russian forces in Mariupol on March 21, 2022. “He got surrounded with his battalion, no one made it out… they all disappeared without a trace,” Nina says. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Former wife Olha, 35, father Arthur, 64, mother Sofia, 69, and daughter Eva, 7, await the return of Rostyslav at their apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine. Rostyslav, 40, a serviceman with the 30th Mechanized Brigade went missing during fighting at the frontline in Mykolaivka Druha, Donetsk region, Ukraine on Sept. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Nina Tkachenko, 47, sits with her daughter Polina, 7, awaiting the return of her husband Vasyl at their rented apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine. Vasyl Yurchuk, 39, a Ukrainian serviceman with the 77th Air Assault Brigade went missing during an evacuation operation of an injured comrade at the frontline in Paraskoviivka, Donetsk region, on Jan. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
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Associated Press writers Vasilisa Stepanenko, Evgeniy Maloletka, Alex Babenko and Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.
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Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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