About 42.000 people are currently missing in Ukraine, an official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said on Wednesday, Ukrinform reported on July 17.
Dmitro Bohatku, who heads the Ministry's Missing Persons Department, said the figure includes both soldiers and civilians.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Thousands of people were killed in the attacks, while millions were displaced from their homes.
Bohatku said that earlier there were more than 51.000 missing, but that figure also included thousands of prisoners of war.
He added that another challenge for the country is the identification of those killed on the battlefield, and that the Ministry of Defense does not take genetic samples of the soldiers it sends to the field.
The latest figure represents a significant increase since April, when Ukraine's chief ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, revealed that nearly 37.000 Ukrainians were missing.
The ministry also has data on 7.000 people whose whereabouts have already been determined, including 3.000 alive and healthy former prisoners of war and 4.000 killed, mostly soldiers, said Bohatku.
Ukraine only sporadically reports on the number of people in Russian captivity. Authorities said last November that 2.384 soldiers and civilians remained in Russian captivity, although there have been several prisoner exchanges since then.
This number does not include Ukrainian children forcibly deported to Russia, Belarus or the occupied territories, whose number exceeds 19.500.
Bonus video:
