With every day of fighting in Ukraine, the number of captured Russian soldiers is growing..

According to officially announced data, there are 562 of them..

In fact, there are significantly more Russians in captivity.

According to ZN sources. UA in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, SBU, Office of the Prosecutor General, 562 people - these are only those who are under the jurisdiction of the Military Law Enforcement Service (VSP) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. (It is this structure of the Ukrainian armed forces that deals with prisoners. ) But the total number of prisoners of war is about one thousand: several hundred more Russian soldiers were recently taken prisoner, the process of their registration is underway. According to ZN. UA, within the next week they will be transferred to the VSP of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Is it possible to attract a prisoner of war to the restoration of the country?

In Ukrainian society itself, the attitude towards Russian prisoners is, to put it mildly, ambiguous.. Now Ukrainians feel anger, hatred towards Russian soldiers who kill children, rape women, rob houses, destroy Mariupol, Irpin, Kharkov... And many of our fellow citizens are wondering: why take soldiers of the army of the aggressor country prisoner Why feed them?

But the answer lies not only in the fact that Ukraine is obliged to follow the international conventions on international humanitarian law that it has signed.. That Russia will use examples of inappropriate behavior with prisoners by the Ukrainian military both in its counter-propaganda and to defend itself at hearings at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

It is also important that we, Ukrainians, are not like the transgressing laws of war and the universal norms of morality of the Russian invaders.. That, protecting our home, we save a human face.

First Deputy Interior Minister Yevgeny Yenin has repeatedly stated over the past month: taking care of prisoners of war will not be a burden on the Ukrainian economy, the Russians, in accordance with the norms of international humanitarian law, will be involved in restoring the economic potential of Ukraine. (Geneva Convention-III provides that the detaining state may use the labor of prisoners of war and pay the minimum wage. But only in certain areas, which include, for example, light industry, agriculture, housing and communal services.

But who will deal with prisoners of war? Where will they be kept Who will guard them? How and where can they be used At the same time, Kyiv should clearly understand: if a soldier can be held captive during the conflict, then at the end of the war he must be handed over to his country without fail.

Within the legal framework.

Although the problem of prisoners of war has existed in Ukraine since 2014, for a long time it was not particularly dealt with, and legislation on this issue was not developed.. But it is necessary to resolve the issues of the stay of prisoners, their protection, maintenance, etc..

For this, the Geneva Convention-III alone is not enough. Although this document contains detailed rules for the treatment of prisoners of war, its implementation involves the adoption of normative legal acts of domestic law that ensure the application of the Convention in Ukraine. And although in November 2020, the Verkhovna Rada registered a draft law “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine to Streamline Issues Related to Prisoners of War and Internees in the Special Period,” the deputies did not consider it.

However, over the eight years of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Ukrainian departments nevertheless prepared at least one document: in 2017, the Instruction on the procedure for the implementation of international humanitarian law in the Armed Forces of Ukraine was approved. And after February 24, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Defense and the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine prepared several departmental documents that refer to the procedure for keeping prisoners of war.

In early March, the government also created a coordinating headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war, which was headed by the Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, Irina Vereshchuk. (At the same time, a number of interlocutors ZN. UA, with whom they discussed the situation on condition of anonymity, were perplexed: why the head of the Ministry of Reintegration was appointed to this position, and not the head of the relevant Ministry of Defense?

What can prisoners of war be convicted of

Although the status of prisoners of war provides for combatant immunity (i.e.. , a soldier does not bear individual responsibility for participation in the war), international law does not exempt Russian military personnel and their commanders from liability for war crimes committed on the territory of Ukraine.

According to ZN. UA, a month after the start of Russia's large-scale invasion of our country, the Ukrainian prosecutor's office reported suspicions to 144 Russian servicemen. Given their combatant immunity, strange articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine are sometimes applied. Thus, Russian prisoners of war are mainly accused of violating Part 3 of Article 110 of the Criminal Code, t. in an encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of our country. Sometimes - part 2 of article 332 of the Criminal Code, which refers to the illegal transfer of people across the border.

But some Russian prisoners of war were nevertheless informed of suspicions of violating Article 438 of the Criminal Code, which provides for punishments for violating the laws and customs of war.. In other words, for war crimes. According to ZN. UA, suspicion under this article was brought, in particular, to one of the Russian military pilots taken prisoner in Kharkov. He is accused of dropping air bombs with a total weight of 10 tons on Kharkiv in three sorties, which killed both civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure.

However, if during the investigation it is established that the suspects did not commit a crime, then the charges will be dropped from these prisoners of war, and the cases will be closed.. At the same time, a letter to the heads of regional prosecutor's offices, signed in March by Prosecutor General of Ukraine Irina Venediktova, states: if there is no information regarding Russian soldiers that they committed war crimes, then their actions do not require legal qualification under any article of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

IN SIZO? Or in special camps?

At the beginning of the Russian invasion, captured Russian soldiers were placed in different places, almost in basements. Then in Kyiv they decided to keep them in special camps in one place. In early March, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal instructed the Ministry of Justice to prepare one of the mothballed penitentiaries for the reception of prisoners of war.. This was supposed to contribute to solving the problem of the stay of captured Russians, their protection and solving the issue of employment..

But, apparently, a separate camp for Russian soldiers held captive has not yet appeared..

In early March, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Justice prepared a joint order " As a result, the captured Russians are in jail in Kiev, Sumy, Vinnitsa, Nikolaev, Kharkov regions, where they are visited by the Ukrainian Ombudsman Lyudmila Denisova. However, our sources say that in the near future the Russians will still be transported to one place..

Painful Exchange.

One of the most sensitive issues for Ukrainian society is the exchange of prisoners of war..

In Ukraine, many believe that Russian prisoners of war should not be extradited to Moscow until the end of the war.. Indeed, among them there are many qualified military specialists who, after returning to Russia, can again take up arms and go to war against Ukraine.. But there is another opinion.

For example, some Western experts believe that Ukraine should hold them, since the released Russian soldiers will tell the truth about the horrors of the war unleashed by Russia at home, and thus representatives of Russian society will go out to protest, as happened in the United States during the Vietnam War. And in Kyiv, apparently, they are not averse to taking this step in order to save both Ukrainian servicemen and pro-Ukrainian activists: according to official data, two exchanges have already taken place recently.

However, given the specifics of both Russian society and the Russian special services, there is no reason to hope that Russian military personnel returned to their homeland will be able to open the eyes of their compatriots to Putin's policies..

In conditions of fierce fighting, there is no unambiguous answer to the question of whether an exchange of prisoners of war should be carried out during the war..

But Ukraine is not Russia. And the value of human life is very important to us.

Read more articles by Vladimir Kravchenko at the link.