About 700 Ukrainian servicemen are in Russian captivity, about 700 Russian servicemen are also in Ukrainian captivity, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Iryna Vereschuk has said.

"Regarding the military, we have, in principle, approximate parity: we have more than 700 of their prisoners, and they have approximately the same number," Vereschuk said during the national telethon on Saturday morning.

At the same time, the situation, according to her, is complicated by the fact that the Russian military is also taking hostages civilians in the occupied territories.

"Unfortunately, there are a lot of our civilians [in captivity]. They seized more than 1,000 people and, unfortunately, about 500 of them are women. And we, obviously, will repeat again and again... we will not exchanging soldiers for civilians, it is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. We will not violate international humanitarian law, and therefore we demand the release of civilians without any conditions and transfer to the Ukrainian side," the Deputy Prime Minister said.

When asked if the Russians comply with the Geneva Convention in relation to Ukrainian prisoners of war, Vereschuk said: "Of course not, there's not even anything to talk about. It's not even about the Geneva Convention – you just have to survive there."

At the same time, she expressed confidence that the prisoners would be released, the Ukrainian side is making every effort for this. "We submit lists all the time. Another thing is that the enemy side does not agree on everyone, but gives only partially and only those whom they consider it necessary to give. This is a constant, permanent struggle for people, but we will not abandon them... We need to wait a bit. You know, what kind of enemy we are dealing with," Vereschuk said.