"He was completely torn apart," Olena recalled. "It seemed the Russians did everything so we wouldn't identify him and wouldn't know the real cause."
Ishchenko's mysterious death in Russian captivity in July represents the greatest worry of the many Ukrainian families who have little to no contact with their loved ones in Russian prisons and fear each day that they are being mistreated or may die.
The family said they had to turn elsewhere to get the body back after unclear communications with Ukraine's official POW coordination center, which did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
Pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over POWs is so high that part of the justification for Ukraine's risky incursion into Russia's Kursk region in August was to take Russian prisoners and replenish the POW 'exchange fund.'
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