The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recalled that captured enemies should be treated with “dignity”, and Russia accused Ukraine of “torturing” captured soldiers.
Ukraine has been concerned to protect its image against Russia, which invaded the country on February 24, causing hundreds of civilian deaths. The country is the object of an unparalleled international solidarity campaign.
But on Friday, Ukrainian authorities lined up 10 young Russian soldiers under the neon lights of a Kiev newsroom, their faces drawn or scratched.
Red-eyed, some shied away from the cameras, staring at the wall or at their boots. Others, on the other hand, seemed to be more comfortable, AFP found.
It was the second time in a week that the SBU, Ukraine’s security services, had carried out this type of practice.
The ICRC recalled in a statement that, under the Geneva Convention“prisoners of war and civilian detainees must be treated with dignity and protected at all times from mistreatment and public exposure, including images circulating publicly on social media.”
AFP asked the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and the SBU about it, but they declined to comment.
In a video, Oleksii Arestovich, an adviser to the presidency, limited himself to calling for “humane treatment of prisoners” and recalled that Ukraine’s Western partners remain vigilant.
On Friday, the scene was painful. The soldiers arrived at the place of the press conference, the headquarters of the Ukrainian news agency Interfax, and were placed in a line, blindfolded with adhesive tape. They moved forward holding each other’s shoulders to keep from falling, observed an AFP journalist.
They were then led into a room where they were shown various videos. According to the sound that was heard, they looked like images of bombings. “Jytomyr, Kharkov, Chernigov, look what your army is doing,” a Ukrainian officer was heard saying from behind the door.
“You know that they will tell their parents that they died during exercises, not that they were here,” he added, assuring that the Russian soldiers were “lucky” to show their families that they were still alive.
Next, the young soldiers in Russian uniform had to announce to the cameras their name, that of their unit and under what conditions they arrived in Ukraine.
Then, they maintained that they had volunteered to denounce Russia’s actions in Ukraine, a statement that raises doubts, since they all expressed themselves in the same way.
All assured that they had been treated well and concluded by asking the Russians not to believe “the lies” of President Vladimir Putin.
Russia has not reacted specifically to these stagings, but Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov stated on February 27 that Russian prisoners of war were being subjected to the same “torture” as perpetrated by “the German Nazis and their henchmen”.
According to Ukraine, since February 24 it has captured 200 Russian soldiers. For its part, Russia indicated that 572 Ukrainian fighters had been captured.
Still, these figures are impossible to verify. The Red Cross explained to AFP that it could not exercise its right to visit the captives “given the current escalation.”
Source: Ambito
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