Last week, Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets announced that Russian prisoners of war (POWs) would no longer be able to make phone calls to relatives. They are still allowed to communicate through letters, meeting Geneva Convention requirements, he noted. The decision came after recent increases in reports of violations of
Russian authorities detained two Colombian nationals who fought for Ukraine, Russia's Security Service (FSB) said on Aug. 30. The two Colombian men were extradited from Venezuela after being detained by Venezuelan authorities during a layover in Caracas, on-route back home to Colombia.
Halfway down a narrow corridor painted all in gray, the guard wrestles with a bulky lock to gain entry to the prison cell. Inside are around twenty young men, sitting on a criss-crossing pattern of metal bunk beds. In the corner of the room, plastic cups and books are stacked
The seizure of the penal colony will be an important step in documenting war crimes committed by Russia against prisoners of war, Media Initiative for Human Rights reported on Aug. 23.
The Russian Prosecutor's Office claimed that all the prisoners expressed "negative attitudes toward the Russian-speaking population" and supported "pro-Ukrainian radical views."
The head of mission for the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Danielle Bell, reported that Ukrainian prisoners of war held in Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories are systematically subjected to torture.
Ishchenko was 55-years-old and a native of Mariupol, Ukrainska Pravda reported. He joined the Azov Brigade as a driver shortly after the launch of Russia's full-scale invasion and was captured in Mariupol in 2022.
The Prosecutor General's Office said the investigation involved statements from 20 victims and 30 eyewitnesses, as well as forensic evidence of those killed. The two unnamed Russian commanders have been charged in absentia with violating the laws of war.
Two years after an explosion killed at least 54 Ukrainian prisoners of war and injured over 150 more at a penal colony in Russian-occupied Olenivka, Donetsk Oblast on July 28-29, 2022, no one has been held accountable as Russia continues to block investigation efforts.
Another 95 Ukrainian defenders have been brought back home, including service members of the Armed Forces, the National Guard, and the Border Guard, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on July 17.
Ukraine lists 42,000 citizens in a unified register for persons missing under special circumstances, an Interior Ministry official said, Ukrinform reported on July 17.
Ukrainian soldiers have said that Russia often fails to evacuate injured troops and at times sends its own wounded soldiers back to the battlefield.
The released captives include 32 personnel of the National Guard, including those who defended the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, 18 border guards, 17 personnel of the Navy, 15 soldiers of the Armed Forces as well as eight of the territorial defense, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War reported.
A video taken in the second half of May captured Russian troops executing four surrendering Ukrainian soldiers near Robotyne, a front-line village in the southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
"If the Russians were interested in returning their prisoners of war, we would have done it long ago. It seems that they simply do not need them," Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on June 15.
Ukraine's military intelligence spokesperson, Andrii Yusov, disputed Russian President Vladimir Putin's claims on the numbers of Ukrainian and Russian prisoners of war (POW) in a comment for the Liga outlet on June 6.
Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on June 2 that he appealed to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to investigate videos showing beatings, humiliation, and threats of Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian soldiers in the Kharkiv direction.
The number includes service personnel of the Armed Forces and the National Guard, border guards, and four civilians.
Editor’s Note: This article was published by the twice-weekly newsletter “The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak” on May 12, 2024, and has been re-published by the Kyiv Independent with permission. To subscribe to "The Counteroffensive," click here. Prisoner negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are one of the many things obscured
As Ukraine prepares for a major peace summit in June, President Volodymyr Zelensky sees an opportunity to free all Ukrainian prisoners from Russia before the end of the war. After the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has seized thousands of Ukrainians, from soldiers to children, adding them to the
Since last December, Russian forces likely executed at least 15 Ukrainian soldiers who tried to surrender and possibly six who were already surrendering or had surrendered, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on May 2.
Adil Muhammad, a Somali, sits in a Russian military uniform among other prisoners of war (POWs) in a press conference in Ukraine’s capital in mid-March. The former infantryman was captured in combat near Marinka in Donetsk Oblast while fighting with the Russian army in Ukraine in early 2024, five
Editor’s note: The location of the prisoner of the war detention center is undisclosed for security reasons. The Kyiv Independent got vocal recorded agreement from the prisoners of the war to be interviewed and identified in the story. Undisclosed location in Western Ukraine – Private Alexey Strelkov massages his knee
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