| I Want to Live | |
| Native Name: | Хочу жити |
| Native Name Lang: | uk |
| Parent Organization: | Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine |
I Want to Live (;) is a hotline for receiving appeals from Russian servicemen in Ukraine. Operated by the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine, the service is designed to help Russian servicemen who do not want to participate in the Russian invasion of Ukraine to safely surrender to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.[1] [2] The project guarantees the detention of surrendering military personnel in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.[3]
According to the official website of the project, there are several methods by which a Russian serviceman can submit an appeal and surrender. These include calling the round-the-clock hotline, or following instructions from a chatbot on the Telegram channel of the project. Shortly after the launch of the project, Russian officials blocked access to it from the country's territory.[4] [5] [3]
For those who have surrendered, Ukrainians offer the opportunity to take part in a prisoner exchange organized between the governments of Russia and Ukraine, or to remain temporarily in detention with the possibility of staying in Ukraine or emigrating later.[6]
On September 18, the coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war, as a continuation of the project designed to encourage the surrender of Russian personnel, launched a special state project with a 24-hour hotline for receiving appeals from the Russian military and their families called "I want to Live."[7] [8]
By October 5, 2022, it was reported that the hotline had already had its first successful use in assisting the surrender of a Russian serviceman to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The Russian soldier who surrendered had been mobilized immediately after the announcement of partial mobilization in Russia.[9]
During the first month of the project, more than three thousand calls from Russian military personnel were processed.[10] By December 2022, a spokesperson for the program said it had processed over 4,300 direct requests for information on how to surrender.[11]
On 4 May 2023, the hotline's spokesperson, Vitaliy Matvienko, stated that it received requests to surrender from 3,200 Russian soldiers in April 2023, representing a 10% increase over March 2023. He added that the hotline had received a total of 16,000 requests to surrender since its inception. Its website had been accessed over 36 million times, 32 million visits of which were made from the territory of Russia.