Russia holds Ukrainian prisoners of war in the colonies of the Rostov region – Denisova
The aggressor country, Russia, violates the rights of captured Ukrainian servicemen by holding them in colonies with ordinary regime, not in POW camps.
The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Lyudmyla Denisova informed about it.
– In violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention, the occupying country is holding captive Ukrainian soldiers in general regime colonies without converting prisons into POW camps, – the ombudsman said.
Denisova clarified that Ukrainian prisoners of war are now in colonies with ordinary regime in the Rostov region of the Russian Federation. To detain the Ukrainians, the Russian invaders resettled two penitentiaries at once. These are the general regime colony № 1 (the town of Zverevo) and the colony № 12 in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, near the border between Russia and Ukraine.
– A month and a half ago, detainees were evicted from there to the colony № 10 Rostov-on-Don, where prisoners now sleep in three shifts. And the institutions in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky and Zverevo are now being filled at the expense of captured Ukrainian soldiers, – the ombudsman specified.
According to Denisova, prisoners of war of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are guarded by employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Russian Federation, as well as Russian prisoners left in these two colonies for auxiliary work.
In this regard, Denisova recalled that the rules for the treatment of prisoners of war are clearly spelled out in the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 1949 and in its additional protocols, which were adopted in 1977 and 2005. And although Russia denounced the protocols in 2019, it is still obliged to abide by the principles of the Convention.
According to this document, prisoners of war captured in the war zone must be evacuated to camps located at a sufficient distance from the danger zone within a short period of time.
– Conditions in these camps should be no less favorable than the conditions used by the troops holding them captive, located in the same area, – said Denisova.
In connection with the violation of the rights of Ukrainian prisoners of war, she appealed to the UN Commission to Investigate Human Rights Violations during the Russian military invasion of Ukraine and called for these facts to be taken into account.
As of April 16, Iryna Vereshchuk, the Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine, said that about 700 Ukrainian servicemen were in Russian captivity. In addition, Russian invaders hold more than 1,000 civilians, most of them women.
On April 21, another exchange of prisoners took place between Ukraine and the Russian side. 19 people were released, 10 of them servicemen.
Source: Lyudmyla Denisova