KYIV, Ukraine — Hundreds of Ukrainian families took to the streets of the capital Friday, calling on government leaders to reject proposed legislation they worry could result in missing military personnel being prematurely declared legally deceased.
The demonstration focused on opposing Bill No. 13646, legislation that deals with the legal status of people who have gone missing. Those who participated in the march expressed concern that specific parts of the proposed law might enable courts to legally declare missing Ukrainian service members dead without confirmation of what actually happened to them.
“Today all the families came out so that the missing are not equated with the dead,” said Mariana Yatselenko, 27, who took part in the Kyiv march.
According to the country’s commissioner for missing persons, Artur Dobrosierdov, more than 90,000 individuals are currently listed as missing in Ukraine’s unified registry of persons who disappeared under special circumstances.
Both Russia and Ukraine refrain from releasing regular casualty figures from the ongoing conflict, though military analysts believe hundreds of thousands have been killed or wounded in the fighting.
Ukraine’s missing persons registry includes individuals who vanished during military operations, due to armed aggression, or in territories under occupation, with most cases occurring after Russia’s full-scale invasion started on Feb. 24, 2022. However, some entries go back to 2014, when Russian forces invaded the Crimean Peninsula and pro-Russia groups began fighting in eastern Ukraine.
The registry started functioning in May 2023, at which time data about both military personnel and civilians from earlier years was added to the system.
Previous protests have taken place regarding this legislation, showing increasing pressure from family members of missing soldiers.
Ukrainian drones hit a college dormitory building in Starobilsk, a city in Ukraine’s Russia-occupied Luhansk region, killing four people and wounding 39 others, Russian authorities said. Up to 18 people could be buried under the rubble, officials said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced the strike as a “heinous crime.” Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Friday said that it intercepted 217 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions, including the Moscow region and St. Petersburg, the country’s second-largest city.
For the fourth time this month Ukraine struck Russia’s Yaroslavl oil refinery, around 700 kilometers (440 miles) from the border, in an overnight operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday.
Ukraine has been pounding Russian oil facilities in an effort to deny Moscow funding for its invasion.
U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting have brought no significant results and recently appeared to peter out.
“They were not fruitful, unfortunately,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of negotiations over the past year with Russia and Ukraine.
No talks are happening now, he said during a trip to Sweden, although they could resume if Washington sees an opportunity for progress.
Ukraine’s air force said that it shot down or jammed 115 of 124 Russian drones that were launched overnight, in regular bombardments of civilian areas that in recent months have escalated.
Eleven people, including a child, were wounded in Russian attacks across the northern Sumy region, the National Police said. Also, a man was killed by a Russian drone in the city of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, according to the region’s military administration chief.
The number of Ukrainian civilian casualties verified by the United Nations increased by 21% in the first four months of this year, compared with the same period last year, with 815 civilians killed and 4,174 wounded.
In Washington, the Trump administration approved a modest $108 million arms sale to Ukraine that will help the country sustain its midrange air defense missile system.
The U.S. State Department announced the sale of ground-to-air Hawk missile components, spare parts and logistic support late Thursday. Under U.S. President Donald Trump, Washington has slashed military support for Ukraine.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian counterattacks have driven the Russian army out of more than 400 square kilometers (150 square miles) of southern Ukraine since the end of last year, Western analysts say.
Those successes are attributed to Ukraine’s increasingly homegrown drone and missile technology, as well as Russian forces being denied access to Starlink satellite services used to steer drones toward targets.
Zelenskyy said that Russia could be planning new attacks on northern Ukraine, launched from Belarus.
Moscow “is eager to draw (Belarus) deeper into this war,” Zelenskyy said on social media, warning that “there will be consequences” for the Belarusian government, if it provides a platform for strikes on Ukraine.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha alerted allies at a NATO meeting in Sweden about what Ukrainian intelligence services say are growing threats from Belarus. Sybiha urged partners to take unspecified deterrence measures against Minsk.
Russia and Belarus held joint nuclear exercises earlier this week.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, underscored “Russia’s ability to leverage Belarus for future Russian military operations and Russia’s deepening de facto control over Belarus.”
