The war in Ukraine, “I want to live.” Icy surrender of Russian soldiers

Nearly 10,000 Russian soldiers surrendered to the Ukrainian army via the “I want to live” hotline. This was written by the Kiev Independent citing the headquarters of the Ukrainian Coordination for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. The operation was launched in September 2022 by Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, and the 24-hour hotline “allows Russians to voluntarily surrender themselves or their units to the Ukrainian army. Russian military personnel are kept in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.”

In addition to the hotline, the newspaper writes, there is also a chatbot and a Russian-language website run by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense that contains information about the program. According to the report, “14 million people have visited the site since its launch.” Most of them are families of soldiers who have returned to Russia, although the Russian government blocked the site in mid-October. In December 2022, a representative of the Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate, Andrei Yusov, said that “the hotline received a total of 1.7 million calls, with more than 100 people calling each day.”