The National Information Bureau met with representatives of the OSCE monitoring mission. The meeting was attended by Oleh Kuzhelev, the head of the NIB, and his deputy, Valentyna Zozulya. The purpose of the meeting was to involve the NIB in organizing the work of the OSCE mission experts.

The ODIHR Monitoring Mission will prepare a report based on the results of the independent experts’ work. This report will be the first international report on the arbitrary detention of Ukrainian civilians by the russian federation.

The ODIHR representatives expect the document to highlight russia’s violations of ODIHR commitments, human rights abuses, war crimes, and other violations of international humanitarian law.

The NIB Head informed the ODIHR delegation about the bureau’s main functions.

Oleg Kuzhelev stated that the NIB’s primary responsibility is to gather information on prisoners of war, civilian hostages, and forcibly displaced persons in connection with the russian federation’s armed aggression against Ukraine. The collected data is then processed, summarized, and forwarded to the relevant institutions for further action.

Valentyna Zozulya discussed processing information on civilian hostages and exchanging data with the International Committee of the Red Cross. The NIB registers are continually processed based on existing data.

The head of the National Information Bureau emphasized that the ODIHR mission should record all the information provided by the NIB in its report. He also stressed the importance of using existing ODIHR mechanisms and instruments to resolve the issue of returning illegally detained civilians and Ukrainian defenders held captive by russia.