92% of those who had been prisoners of the Russians claimed to have been ill-treated or tortured, whereas that figure was 49% (which is still alarmingly high) for PoWs held by Ukraine, according to a UN report
in prison for murder in Russia’s Ivanovo region, north-east of Moscow, when army recruiters came by and offered him a good salary and a record wiped clean in exchange for six months’ service. Two weeks after arriving at the front he stepped on a mine, lost his foot and was saved by Ukrainian troops. “If I had known the consequences of joining, I would not have done it,” he says dryly. Now he is reading a crime thriller in a prisoner-of-war camp near Lviv, hoping he will be exchanged soon.
The Lviv camp is a model one. In accordance with the Geneva Conventions, the PoWs are not locked up in cells. Krzysztof Janowski of the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights says that conditions in the camp have “not raised any major issues with us in the past,” and “are constantly improving over time.” As allowed by the conventions, ordinary soldiers are put to work. In one room men sit around a table sticking and glueing fancy shopping bags. They also make garden furniture.
In the Lviv camp many of the Russian PoWs look far older than their years. Many of those recruited from prison have been ill and weak and “it is very difficult to believe they can have been useful except as artillery meat,” says Mr Yatsenko. The Russian army began recruiting in prisons early in the year as its relations with the Wagner group deteriorated. But he says that it seems that Wagner had already taken the fittest prisoners.
In the Lviv camp most of the PoWs that were asked said they had not been mistreated—but Ukrainian officials were around, if not present, at every discussion. A couple of men looked down and said this was not something they wanted to talk about. The treatment of some PoWs by both countries upon capture, including the reported summary execution of 15 Ukrainians and 25 Russian PoWs “may constitute war crimes,” says thereport.
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