When Oleksandra and Angelika contacted me, they were facing a dilemma. They wanted journalists to draw attention to the fate of their loved ones: Oleksandra’s husband and Angelika’s brother were both Ukrainian prisoners of war held by Russia.
But Ukrainian state officials were claiming that any public statements – or protests – could end up harming the secretive negotiations with Russia over prisoner exchanges. The women’s requests for information about their relatives had been met with stony silence. And journalists, taking the government’s lead for the most part, were reluctant to tell their story.
Having spent most of 2022 reporting on the consequences of Russia’s invasion, this was not a new problem for me. Earlier this year, when I spoke to Kostiantyn and Anna, two former prisoners from Russia’s infamous POW camp at Olenivka, I found out how they had set up a Telegram group to pool information about men and women seen in the camp. The reason: they were frustrated at the lack of official communication.
