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The Russian government is not releasing details about the number of casualties it is sustaining in its invasion of Ukraine. But Ukraine is posting images of killed and captured soldiers, asking Russians to help ID them.
The Russian government is not releasing details about the number of casualties it is sustaining in its invasion of Ukraine. But Ukraine is posting images of killed and captured soldiers, asking Russians to help ID them.

As the Russian government remains silent about the number of losses it has incurred in its invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv is appealing directly to families of Russian soldiers to identify their relatives captured or killed in the four-day-old war.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry issued the appeal on February 27, directing relatives of Russian soldiers to online platforms where they can search through photos and videos of Russian soldiers captured or killed by Ukrainian forces.

The initiative, called Ishchi Svoikh (Look For Your Own), appears aimed in part at undermining morale and support for the war in Russia, where officials and state media have refrained from disclosing details of Russian casualties and military assaults against Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv.

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Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said the Russian government had been unresponsive about facilitating the return of Russian soldiers’ remains.

“For that reason, we have been forced to appeal to you, citizens of Russia, so that you can find those who were killed on our territory -- and killed because he illegally crossed our border based on an illegal and despicable order by your president,” Denysenko said in the video appeal, which the Ukrainian Interior Ministry posted on its official YouTube channel:

Russian authorities moved swiftly against the initiative's site, which was blocked by the government's media regulator the same day at the request of Russia's Prosecutor-General's Office.

The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to release information about the number of Russian soldiers killed, wounded, or captured since President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

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The Ukrainian military on February 27 said that Russia had lost around 4,300 military personnel, though that figure did not include a breakdown of the number killed, wounded, and captured.

A day earlier, the Ukrainian military said that more than 3,500 Russian soldiers had been killed, though it was not possible to independently corroborate that claim.

Ruslan Leviyev, the founder of the nongovernmental Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), an open-source investigative group focused on the Russian military, said his team estimates that at least 500 Russian soldiers have been killed in the conflict so far.

“The [Russian Defense Ministry] itself is not acknowledging a single loss -- not prisoners of war or those killed in action. It’s as if there aren’t any at all,” Leviyev told Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

Shortly after Leviyev’s interview on February 27, the Russian Defense Ministry issued its first admission of casualties, but gave no numbers on how many the Russian military had suffered.

“Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded among our comrades,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov was quoted by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency as saying.

WATCH: Amid claim and counterclaim about Russia's war in Ukraine, open-source intelligence analyst Ruslan Leviyev says Russia has suffered at least 500 killed so far.

'At Least 500 Dead': Open-Source Analyst Gives Likely Russian Death Toll
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'Mama And Papa, I Didn't Want To Come Here'

The URL for the website launched by Ukraine for Russians to identify their killed or captured relatives is called 200rf.com -- a reference to "Cargo 200,” a code for the bodies of soldiers being returned. The bulk of the images, videos, and official documents of Russian soldiers are posted on an associated channel on the encrypted messaging service Telegram.

The photographs and videos include extremely graphic images of soldiers killed in battle, as well as on-camera interrogations of captured Russian soldiers.

In one post, a purported Russian POW is shown being allowed to inform relatives about his whereabouts. In another, a different alleged POW is asked if he has a message for his mother and father.

“Mama and papa, I didn’t want to come here. They forced me to,” the man says.

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RFE/RL was unable to verify what kind of pressure the men in these videos may have been subjected to prior to giving on-camera statements.

Denysenko, the adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, claimed in his appeal to families of Russian soldiers on February 27 that Ukraine is treating war prisoners “very humanely.”

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“No one is treating them badly. If necessary, we provide medical care. But your government took your relatives’ telephones away. They don’t have any way to contact you,” Denysenko said.

He added that as a paid service, parents could submit their own DNA information via the website for a test to determine the identity of soldiers killed in action.

A Lone Confirmed Death

Since the start of the war, there has been just one official confirmation of the death of a Russian soldier, but it did not come from Russia’s Defense Ministry. Instead, it came from the Moscow-appointed head of Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region of Daghestan.

Sergei Melikov, who had headed the region since October 2020, said in an Instagram post that Russian officer Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov, a native of Dagestan who served in Russia’s airborne troops, had died in combat and that he “received the tragic news with great regret.”

Melikov did not disclose how Gadzhimagomedov died.

With reporting by Current Time, Siberia.Realities, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, and Mark Krutov of RFE/RL’s Russian Service
Anti-War Protests Break Out Across Belarus
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Protests against Russia's invasion of Ukraine broke out in Minsk and other cities as Belarusians cast ballots in a referendum on constitutional changes to tighten Alyaksandr Lukashenka's grip on power.

Video posted on social media showed several people in different places around the country being detained on February 27 as they held various demonstrations against the invasion.

More than 300 people were detained, mostly in Minsk, according to the Vyasna human rights group, which listed the names of the people arrested on its website.

The referendum would change the constitution to allow Lukashenka, 67, to rule until 2035, offer him a new lever of power, and abolish a section of the document defining Belarus as a "nuclear-free zone," possibly paving the way for the return of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus.

Speaking at a polling station on February 27, Lukashenka said that he could ask Russia to return nuclear weapons to Belarus.

"If you (the West) transfer nuclear weapons to Poland or Lithuania, to our borders, then I will turn to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to return the nuclear weapons that I gave away without any conditions," Lukashenka said.

Opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya said the referendum was Lukashenka's attempt to strengthen his grip on power and called on Belarusians to use the vote to protest the war against Ukraine.

"All over the country, Belarusians gather to protest against the war in Ukraine, Belarus's involvement in it, against the Lukashenka regime," Tsikhanouskaya said on Twitter.

Lukashenka proposed the constitutional changes following domestic and international backlash over his violent crackdown on dissent after the August 2020 presidential election that he claims gave him a sixth consecutive term. The opposition says the vote was rigged.

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One person sent a picture to RFE/RL of a ballot they said they submitted.

Both yes and no were marked on the ballot along with a message to free blogger and RFE/RL consultant Ihar Losik, who in December was handed a 15-year prison sentence after being accused of using his popular Telegram channel to "prepare to disrupt public order."

Deemed illegitimate by much of the West, Lukashenka now depends on support from Putin, who has exploited that weakness to extract further concessions that the Kremlin hopes will be cemented under a final union state.

Lukashenka, a former communist-era collective-farm manager, has a history of tampering with Belarus's constitution.

In 1996, he significantly expanded his own powers as president and reduced the powers of parliament, while in 2004 he lifted restrictions on the number of presidential terms that can be served.

In 2016, Lukashenka first mentioned a possible third round of constitutional changes, announcing the need to "create a group of wise men, lawyers who will analyze our fundamental law."

That talk largely vanished until the aftermath of the disputed 2020 presidential election, when tens of thousands took to the streets in some of the biggest protests in Belarus's post-Soviet history.

Lukashenka eventually unveiled his plans for a referendum on the changes that give more powers to the All-Belarus People's Assembly, a periodic gathering of loyalists that currently has no governing status under the law. He said it could provide a "safety net" in case "the wrong people come to power, and they have different views."

The revamped All-Belarus People's Assembly, if the changes are approved as expected, would act as a parallel structure next to parliament, holding wide-ranging powers to approve foreign, security, and economic policy. It would also be able to propose changes to the constitution, draft laws, and select members of the Central Election Commission and judges of the top courts.

According to the proposed amendments, a sitting president automatically becomes a delegate of the 1,200-seat assembly and may chair it if elected by other delegates.

The proposed changes also would give Lukashenka immunity from prosecution and put in place a limit of two terms in office, each for five years. However, the restrictions would only apply going forward, meaning Lukashenka could rule until he is 81 years old.

The amendments would also prohibit anyone who temporarily left the country in the last 20 years from becoming president, a change aimed directly at opposition members, many of whom were forced into exile to avoid political persecution.

With reporting by Tony Wesolowsky

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"Watchdog" is a blog with a singular mission -- to monitor the latest developments concerning human rights, civil society, and press freedom. We'll pay particular attention to reports concerning countries in RFE/RL's broadcast region.

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