200,000 Families Searched for Missing Russian Soldiers - "I Want to Find" Data Reveals the True Cost of Russia's Human Wave Tactics

Since launching in January 2024, the "I Want to Find" project has received 200,084 applications from families searching for missing Russian Armed Forces personnel. The real number of missing is significantly higher - not everyone knows the project exists.

According to testimonies from Russian servicemen themselves, the scale of missing personnel is a direct consequence of mass human wave assault tactics. Most commanders do not evacuate the dead and refuse to evacuate wounded subordinates. When a soldier goes missing, command lists them as missing in action, any investigation is purely formal, and real evacuation never happens. Wounded soldiers die on the battlefield without medical assistance.

In the time the project has been operating, the fate of 4,105 missing Russian servicemen has been established:

• 3,939 found alive among prisoners of war
• 2,519 of those have already been exchanged and returned to Russia
• 166 identified among bodies and remains

During the last prisoner exchange on May 15, 2026, 57% of all exchanged Russian army personnel had been located by their families through the "I Want to Find" project. Project confirmation allowed thousands of families to secure POW status for their relatives and have them included in exchange lists.

Thousands more remain in Ukrainian captivity - not because exchange is impossible, but because the Kremlin has not included them in the lists. Russia is not in a hurry to bring them home. Those least likely to ever appear on Kremlin exchange lists include members of Russia's indigenous peoples, residents of occupied Donetsk and Luhansk territories, and foreign nationals who fought in the Russian Armed Forces. For Moscow, these men are the most expendable in war - and apparently just as expendable when it comes to getting them back.

See also: profiles of foreign nationals who were captured in Ukraine.

If your relative traveled to Russia or joined service in the Russian Armed Forces and you have lost contact with them - do not wait. Full instructions on how to act and how to contact the “I Want to Find” project can be found here.

Source: I Want to Find Telegram Channel