Russian forces participating in the armed invasion of Ukraine are selling Ukrainian prisoners of war to other aggressor units. Among the buyers are Chechen formations, as revealed by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in its latest report, citing reports from the British daily newspaper The Times.
Some paramilitary formations fighting alongside Russia, especially units affiliated with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, currently do not have many opportunities to capture Ukrainian prisoners because they are not directly involved in military operations.
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However, these units want to conduct a prisoner exchange with Ukraine to recover Chechen soldiers captured at the front. That is why these units are involved in the prisoner trade and the purchase of Ukrainians from the regular Russian army, ISW reported, citing reports from the British daily newspaper The Times.
A Russian soldier in the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Illustrative image Sergey Aksyonov / Telegram
The newspaper stressed that the 1949 Geneva Convention relating to the treatment of prisoners of war does not recognize such informal exchanges as a violation of humanitarian law, but such practices are likely to be illegal. The Convention prohibits the adoption of “special agreements that adversely affect the status of prisoners of war.”
Thousands of Ukrainians remain in captivity
Yuri Taraniuk, a representative of the Ukrainian Coordination Body for the Exchange of Prisoners of War, said at the end of January that more than eight thousand Ukrainian citizens remained in Russian captivity, including more than 1,600 civilians.
Main image source: Sergey Aksyonov / Telegram
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