Ukrainian prisoners were “abandoned” to fight on the side of the occupiers in Donbas: details from ISW
The Russian Federation has sent a battalion formed of Ukrainian prisoners of war to the front line.
This was reported analysts of the Institute for the Study of War in their daily report for December 28.
“Russia has officially deployed a battalion made up of Ukrainian prisoners of war to the front line in Ukraine, confirming a host of clear violations of the Geneva Convention relative to prisoners of war by Russia,” the statement said.
On December 28, Russian media outlets RIA Novosti and Rossiya-1 stated that these were fighters of the Bohdan Khmelnytsky battalion, formed from Ukrainian prisoners of war and subordinated to the Kaskad formation of the DPR Interior Ministry. In particular, they took part in the battles near Urozhayne in Donetsk region. On December 27, Russian journalists noted that the battalion recruited about 70 Ukrainian prisoners from penal colonies in Russia and sent them for training before sending them to the front in early November.
Analysts said that such actions of the Russian Federation are a violation of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the use of prisoners of war in military activities on the side of the country that captured them. In addition, they stated that “no prisoner of war shall at any time be sent or detained in places where he may be exposed to fire in a combat zone” and shall not be “employed in work of an unhealthy or dangerous nature.”
On November 27, Petro Yatsenko, a representative of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, said that there would be no benefit from a unit of prisoners of war at the front. According to him, this is a response to the formation of volunteer battalions of Russians in Ukraine.
