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In May 2024, the Ministry of Digital Transformation published data that 52,673 Ukrainians have been missing since February 24, 2022. Of these, 68.5% went missing under special circumstances, i.e. because of hostilities, temporary occupation or natural disasters. The largest number of missing persons was recorded in March 2022 – 3,975 people.
It was in the spring of 2022 that Andriy Khriakov, a defender from Sloviansk, went missing somewhere near Rubizhne, the Luhansk region. We talked to his younger brother Serhiy about how it happened, how the family found out all the circumstances of the tragedy, what kind of person Andriy was, and how he joined the army.