Russia-Ukraine War: How Ukraine, Russia Are Treating Prisoners Of War

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, its war against Ukraine has had a disastrous impact on civilian lives of Ukraine, killing thousands of civilians, injuring many thousands more, and destroying civil property and infrastructure. Russian forces committed a litany of violations of international humanitarian law, including indiscriminate and disproportionate bombing and shelling of civilian areas that hit homes and healthcare and educational facilities. Some of these attacks should be investigated as war crimes. In the areas they occupied, Russian forces committed flagrant war crimes, including torture, summary executions, sexual violence, enforced disappearances, and looting of cultural property. Those who attempted to flee areas of fighting faced terrifying ordeals and numerous obstacles; in some cases, Russian forces forcibly transferred significant number of Ukrainians to Russia or Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine and subjected many to abusive security screenings.

In addition to this, Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine led to captivity and forced displacement of a large number of Ukrainian military servicemen and civilians. The mentioned citizens of Ukraine are unlawfully detained by the Russia’s authorities both on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and the territory of Russia, they are subjected to torture and other psychological and physical violence, and their health and lives are in grave danger. The most known fact of mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war took place in detention camp in the village of Olenivka in Donetsk region of Ukraine, where an explosion planned by Russians killed 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war and injured over 130.

At the same time, Russian soldiers arrested for committing crimes on the territory of Ukraine, are detained in a civilized way in accordance with the requirements of the international law, including Geneva Convention of 1949, 4th Hague Convention of 1907 and other human rights instruments. They are provided with everything necessary, and they can be exchanged, when the Russian side is willing to do so. Their living standards in the detention camps on the territory of Ukraine is not worse and sometimes even better than the living standards of the Ukrainian refugees, who were forced to save themselves from the criminal aggression of the Russian Federation.

Putin’s regime’s treatment of unlawfully detained citizens of Ukraine and Ukrainian military servicemen is manifestly criminal and degrading, and often it is barbarian and terroristic, directed at destroying them psychologically and physically. In fact, the captives are held as hostages, under the threat to their lives and health. In some known cases, the treatment of captive Ukrainian citizens aims at their extrajudicial execution. They are maimed, tortured and forced to commit unlawful actions against their own country – Ukraine. This situation is aggravated by lack of access to the Ukrainian captives for representatives of Ukraine and international organizations.

At the same time, it is important to emphasize manifest indifference of the Putin’s regime to the majority of Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine. As an exception, Russia attempts to release detained in Ukraine agents of FSB (Russian secret service), intelligence officers, high-ranking officers and pilots of the Russia’s armed forces, as well as so-called Kadyrovtsy from anti-retreat units and the rear punitive forces, which in Putin’s regime’s hierarchy have priority and certain value. The rest of the Russia’s war prisoners are expendables, about which Kremlin and even their relatives don’t care, and, among other things, their captivity exerts additional financial pressure on Ukraine’s budget as the result of significant costs of their civilized sustenance. Moreover, after captives exchange, Russia often uses its soldiers for staged propaganda shows with so-called “exposure of the horrors of Ukrainian captivity”. However, after the captivity, Russian soldiers are sent back to the frontlines in the capacity of “cannon meat” and they are often taken captive again.

Ukraine continues to put all the efforts to protecting human rights and liberating its own citizens from Russian captivity. At the same time the situation with extremely dangerous for life and health detention of Ukrainian captives in Russia requires immediate interference of human rights international organizations and NGOs, since continuation of the existing situation leads only to increased risks for life and health of Ukrainian citizens, and undermines the respect to those international organizations and, consecutively, the prospects of their further existence.