Russia is systematically restricting the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from accessing Ukrainian prisoners of war and on the rare occasions when visits are allowed, it only shows those captives who are in relatively good condition, hiding the sick, the maimed and the victims of ill-treatment.

Russia is systematically restricting the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from accessing Ukrainian prisoners of war and on the rare occasions when visits are allowed, it only shows those captives who are in relatively good condition, hiding the sick, the maimed and the victims of ill-treatment.

Source: members of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Moscow Mechanism’s mission of experts, as reported by Ukrinform

Details: According to the mission members, the ICRC does not have free and unhindered access to places of detention of Ukrainian POWs in Russia and in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Professor Hervé Ascensio noted that cooperation with the Russian side is very difficult. Although certain visits by Red Cross representatives have taken place, they have been few in number, did not cover all detention facilities and were conducted without full access to all prisoners.

Professor Veronika Bílková added that the situation with access is much worse than it should be under legal standards. Representatives of the ICRC are often not allowed to speak with prisoners in private, which is a gross violation of international norms, as it makes it impossible to obtain truthful information about detention conditions.

A key conclusion, based on the testimony of released Ukrainians, is that the Russian authorities manipulate ICRC visits. Professor Mark Klamberg reported that former POWs confirm that only those captives who were in good condition were shown during inspections.

Klamberg stressed that those who had been ill or subjected to ill-treatment had not been accessible to the ICRC and that everything had been controlled by the Russian authorities, although the ICRC must have free access.

In addition to physical denial of access, Russia conceals information about prisoners. According to Bílková, the Russian National Information Bureau, established under the Defence Ministry to collect data on POWs, operates in a non-transparent manner.

Bílková explained that in every state at war a National Information Bureau had to be established to collect information about enemy prisoners. She noted that Ukraine had created it and gathered data, including on Russian prisoners. She added that information about the Ukrainian bureau is easy to find online as there is even a website. In contrast, there was practically no information about the Russian bureau, only a telephone number somewhere for the families of prisoners.

The final report of the OSCE expert mission emphasises that the documented practice of Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian POWs, which includes executions, systematic torture, denial of the right to a fair trial and detention in inhumane conditions, constitutes war crimes and, in some cases, crimes against humanity.

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