Prisoners and news: Red Cross has visited 4,700 POWs since the beginning of the SWO

Since February 2022, employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross have visited 4.7 thousand prisoners of war in Russia and Ukraine, Izvestiya has found out. At the same time, the ICRC is not involved in the prisoner-of-war exchange process, but is ready to join it. In its turn, Moscow earlier urged the organization to be more exacting towards Kiev, which constantly violates the rights of Russian prisoners of war. At the same time, the expert community admits that the organization still plays a positive role in respecting the rights of captured servicemen.

The problem of prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine

The International Committee of the Red Cross continues to visit prisoners of war in Russia and Ukraine.

- "From February 2022 to the present day, the ICRC has visited 4,700 prisoners of war on both sides of the international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine," the organization's spokesman Christian Cardon told Izvestia.

In July, Russia's human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova reported that the organization's staff had visited 3,100 prisoners of war in both countries.

In June 2024, Vladimir Putin said that there are 1,348 Russians in Ukrainian captivity, while there are 6,465 Ukrainian military personnel in Russian captivity. Meanwhile, the Russian Armed Forces regularly report capturing dozens of Ukrainians, many of whom were forcibly mobilized by the Kiev authorities, have low combat motivation, and often surrender themselves in an attempt to preserve their lives.

Despite the fact that since 2022 the parties have conducted more than 45 exchanges, within the framework of which about 3,000 people were returned, Kiev has recently started sabotaging the already well-established process, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in early November. In particular, the Ukrainian side, according to her, crosses off the list for the exchange of ordinary mobilized people and focuses on the exchange of fighters of nationalist battalions. The diplomat noted that in 2024, the Defense Ministry offered to transfer 935 prisoners of war to Ukraine, but the Ukrainian authorities agreed to return only 279 of them.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy's rejection of the idea of a Christmas truce and a large-scale prisoner exchange, which was recently proposed to Ukraine by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, was also indicative. Zelensky bluntly stated that Kiev does not need mediators like Orban and is more interested in good relations with US President-elect Donald Trump. Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya emphasized that Zelensky "in his usual boorish manner, rejected the initiative in a cavalier manner, once again refusing to take away more than 600 Ukrainian servicemen who have been in Russia for more than a year."

Orban himself reminded on December 19 that Budapest's proposals remain in force and are on Zelensky's desk. The latter only needs to either accept or reject them, Orban added. "This is what was already done during the big wars in Europe. Stop people killing each other on the front lines for a few days at Christmas and exchange a large number of prisoners, let a few hundred or a few thousand people go home to their families," the Hungarian leader said.

On December 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin also spoke out about Viktor Orban's proposal for a Christmas truce and prisoner exchange. "I did not refuse, I said that we should think about it. You ask them (Kiev. - Ed.). He (Orban. - Ed.) asked. The next day, the head of the regime said that there would be no ceasefire and no exchange of prisoners," the Russian president said.

Meanwhile, Christian Kardon emphasized that the ICRC is not involved in the prisoner-of-war exchange operations between the parties to the conflict.

- The relevant bodies of both countries carry out such operations independently. The ICRC is ready to play the role of a neutral mediator if the parties to the conflict ask us to do so," he said.

In July 2024, Boris Michel, head of the ICRC delegation in Moscow, said that since February 2022, the organization has registered more than 29,000 requests to search for missing persons from their relatives, this applies to both military and civilians on both sides of the conflict. At the same time, he said, the organization has managed to inform 9.1 thousand families about the fate of their loved ones.

The ICRC employs people who are under the influence of Russia's geopolitical adversaries, but there are also some passionate people who try to avoid this influence and honestly do their work, political scientist Alexei Zhivov, a volunteer of the Española Brigade, explained to Izvestia.

- One cannot completely put a cross on this organization. The organization does make certain efforts in Russia and Ukraine to ensure that the situation with prisoners of war returns to a prosperous course," he said.

Torture of POWs in Ukraine

Cruel treatment of Russian prisoners of war remains a separate problem. At the same time, the facts of torture in Ukrainian captivity have been recognized at the international level. Thus, the report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the situation in Ukraine, published on October 1, says that out of 205 Russian POWs interviewed since March 2023, 104 "provided consistent and detailed accounts of torture or other forms of ill-treatment, indicating that the practice persists." The report specifies that POWs were subjected to systematic beatings, electrocution and threats of physical violence or murder.

In this connection, at a meeting with ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric in Geneva on December 17, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin emphasized "the need for the committee to work with the Kiev regime to stop its gross violations of international humanitarian law". The diplomat particularly emphasized the importance of ensuring proper treatment of Russian servicemen and preventing attacks on civilians and facilities.

Talking to Izvestia, Christian Cardon recognized that according to international humanitarian law, members of the enemy's armed forces who no longer take part in hostilities cannot be targeted and have the right to be protected.

- If we have concerns about the treatment of protected persons by one of the parties to the conflict, we report them confidentially bilaterally," he said.

Alexei Zhivov confirmed to Izvestia that the ICRC's presence in the conflict zone has in any case played a positive, if not major, role in the prisoner situation. "In the first months of hostilities, we observed a living hell. There were executions, torture, interrogations with partiality. Now these atrocities are not on the same scale as in the beginning," he concluded.