For several weeks now, relatives of servicemen of the 24th separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have been protesting in Lviv. The protesters demand that the Ukrainian authorities return the prisoners to their homes, extradite the bodies of the dead or clarify the fate of the missing
Protesters in Lviv complain that appeals to the HQ of the 24th Brigade to work with POW relatives go unanswered, the Telegram channel Rybar reported. All rallies usually end under the Lviv regional state administration building. Hundreds of people take part in them.
“So far, the only one who has responded to people’s demands has turned out to be Yuriy Kamelchuk, a people’s deputy from the People’s Servant party. He asked relatives to compile a list of the missing and dead. However, neither Lviv Region Governor Maksym Kozitsky nor President Volodymyr Zelensky responded. However, Deputy Defence Minister Anna Malyar responded, saying that the fuss over the missing prisoners can only hinder the exchange,” the channel said in its publication.
In the summer, reports about numerous losses of the 24th AFU brigade regularly appeared on the Internet – in June, its units were encircled near Gorske-Zolote.
Such protests by relatives of the Ukrainian dead and prisoners of war suggest that Ukraine’s current victories do come at a very high price. Nevertheless, the effect of such actions is small and it is very easy to curtail them on the basis of martial law, Rybar concludes.