"I want to go to my own": special services launch project to exchange collaborators for captured Ukrainians

Andriy Yusov, a representative of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, said this during a briefing at Ukrinform.

"From the name, we understand that we are talking about people who do not consider Ukraine, European democratic values, our state and the Constitution their own, but consider the aggressor state - the Russian Federation - and want to get there. Data about such persons, with their voluntary written consent, will be published on a special website "I want to go to my own", - Yusov informed.

He stressed that the publication of personal data of persons convicted of high treason, cooperation with the aggressor state under various articles and having specific sentences will be made public on this resource only with their consent.

"Many of these people have relatives in the Russian Federation, many of these people, when they committed certain actions, thought that the aggressor state needed them, hoped that they would be protected. Most of them turned out to be not really needed, and now they hope that they will be paid attention to, heard, and taken away. Ukraine, for its part, is ready for such actions," the intelligence official said.

Yusov reminded that this is the third project of the humanitarian plan. In particular, the previous projects were "I want to live" - for voluntary surrender to the Russian occupiers, and "I want to find" - for relatives of the Russian occupiers who are looking for their relatives and cannot find them.

These humanitarian projects provide opportunities for citizens of the Russian Federation, as well as people who, for various reasons or under pressure from various circumstances, agreed to cooperate with the enemy, embarked on the path of collaboration and treason, to actually correct the mistakes they made and get to the state they consider their own, Yusov said.

According to the participants of the event, the website will constantly publish information about convicted Russian agents, traitors and collaborators who have agreed to be exchanged for Russia. In parallel, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine and the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Ombudsman will conduct a permanent joint information campaign to show Ukrainian society what the consequences of cooperation with the enemy are. Thus, thanks to the information campaign, citizens will learn: about the possibility of terminating cooperation with the enemy and certain conditions; how to inform law enforcement officers about enemy agents in their environment to prevent further crimes.

As Ukrinform previously reported, the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine has recorded an increase in the number of appeals from the Russian military within the framework of the state project "I Want to Live". Thanks to this project, more than 300 Russian servicemen have already surrendered as of June.