In the interview with one of the national media, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk said that the search for the missing is the urgent and not a new topic for Ukraine. She reminded that the war has been going on for eight years. Therefore, the search for the missing has been going on since the beginning of the russian invasion of Donbas.

However, for some time the work was held inactive: for this area was responsible a commission, which did not work due to inconsistencies in legislation.

«The Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories and I, as the Deputy Prime Minister, have been instructed to rectify the situation – Iryna Vereshchuk explained. – The following drat law was recieved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on 24, February. It was the draft law that regulated the introduction of the position of the Commissioner for Missing Persons. Unfortunately, we did not have time to finish this work then, because the war started. Now we return to the implementation of previous developments».

The Deputy Prime Minister clarified that the work of the Commissioner for Missing Persons will continue in close cooperation with the newly established National Information Bureau, which is tasked with compiling registers and centralizing information on missing persons, prisoners of war, sick and dead on both sides.

According to Iryna Vereshchuk, such databases are necessary in order to be able to operate them, involving the Red Cross, the United Nations and other organizations involved in the search for the missing. «We have to quickly institutionalize this vertical, because we understand that someone must do it» – Iryna Vereshchuk concluded.