The site created by Ukraine aims to undermine the morale and support for the war in Russia, where officials and state media have refrained from disclosing details of casualties
Ukrainian soldiers take positions outside a military facility as two cars burn, in a street in Kyiv, Ukraine. AP
Amid Russia’s refusal to accept losses incurred in its invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv has launched a new website to help Russian families track down soldiers who have been killed or captured fighting in Moscow’s invasion of the pro-Western country.
News agency AFP reported on Sunday that the site — 200rf.com — contains pictures of the documents and bodies of Russian soldiers Ukraine said had been killed since President Vladimir Putin launched the attack.
Here’s what you know about the site:
200rf explained
The website was developed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
The name of the site references the well-known term Gruz-200 (Cargo-200) that was used by the Soviet military for corpses being flown back from the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The English translation of the description of website reads: “This site was created by representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. On it, you will find information about captured and killed Russian soldiers in Ukraine since the beginning of the occupation. Here we will promptly post photos and videos that we receive from the battlefield. If your relatives or friends are in Ukraine and participate in the war against our people – here you can get information about their fate. Unfortunately, it is difficult to identify a lot of those killed. We deliberately post these photos and videos, you may recognize someone by indirect signs.”
Viktor Andrusiv, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, also posted a video on the site.
“I know that many Russians are worried about how and where their children, sons, husbands are and what is happening to them — so we decided to put this online so that each of you could search for your loved one who Putin sent to fight in Ukraine,” he was quoted as saying in an AFP report.
The initiative also appears to aim 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.
In addition to the site, Ukraine has also launched a hotline for families, relatives, and friends of Russian soldiers who have been captured by the Ukrainian troops.
Anton Herashchenko, advisor to the Ukraine minister of internal affairs, pointed out that the hotline will inform Russian families whether their son, brother, father are still alive, taken prisoner, or if they have been injured.
The families will then be able to decide when and how to pick up/transfer the body to their home in the Russian Federation.
Need for the site
The site comes at a time when Moscow has refused to divulge details about losses suffered by its forces in the attacks.
On 27 February, the Ukrainian military said that Russia had lost around 4,300 military personnel.
Russia has not responded dircetly to this claim. However, on Sunday, the Russian army did admit that their soldiers had been ‘killed and injured’ and and labelled Ukrainian soldiers as “Nazis”.
“Russian servicemen are showing courage and heroism while fulfilling combat tasks in the special military operation. Unfortunately, there are killed and injured among our comrades… The losses of the Russian Armed Forces are many times less than the number of servicemen of the Ukrainian armed forces,” State news agency TASS cited Moscow’s army spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying.
With inputs from agencies
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