Olena Tolkachova
spent her forty first birthday receiving some 50 corpses. The grim cargo arrived on the Kyiv morgue June 8 from Mariupol, a southeastern metropolis pulverized in Russia’s first vital victory because it launched its newest invasion of the nation on Feb. 24.
Ms. Tolkachova belongs to the guardianship unit of the Azov Regiment of Ukraine’s National Guard, which has tended to troopers’ stays and their households for the previous eight years of battle in Ukraine. “This is the first time we are confronted with such a number of bodies and generally such a state of bodies,” she says. “We basically can’t even determine what kind of injuries caused their death.” She worries about the best way to spare households the “terrible psychological trauma” of seeing their family members’ ravaged stays. “We will be trying to talk parents out of inspecting the bodies themselves and suggesting that the identification be done by way of DNA analysis.”
Bleak because the scene was, it sparked hope for the households of some 2,500 troopers who survived the siege of Mariupol. Kyiv and Moscow brokered an trade of troops killed in motion, and households hope Russia will commerce captives subsequent.
Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Shoigu
lately mentioned Russia had taken practically 6,500 Ukrainian troopers prisoner since February, Voice of America reported. Ukraine mentioned in early April that it held some 600 Russian POWs. The Ukrainian authorities is tight-lipped about negotiations for prisoner exchanges, and the households of Mariupol’s defenders say they don’t understand how Russia has handled their family members. But Ukrainian human-rights activists say Russia routinely tortures prisoners of battle, deprives them of requirements, and holds them in deplorable situations.
Mariupol’s defenders included the Azov Regiment, lots of whose members Ms. Tolkachova knew, and the thirty sixth Marine Brigade. After enduring weeks of siege and brutal assault, the Ukrainian troopers laid down their arms in hope of saving lives. Many civilians have been efficiently evacuated from the Ukrainian troopers’ final stronghold within the metropolis.
Bohdan Krotevych,
the Azov Regiment’s 29-year-old chief of employees, mentioned final month that the Ukrainians proposed that Russia would obtain their severely wounded troopers and launch them in a prisoner trade.
The Russians mentioned no—“either everyone or no one” must give up, Mr. Krotevych advised me by textual content message on May 18. “So we were faced with a very tough choice. . . . Those with serious wounds were basically rotting away and slowly dying in our hospitals, while the enemy was robbing the humanitarian convoys with medicine.” By May 20 he had stopped responding to messages, and the press reported the troopers’ give up.
During the siege of Mariupol, “we were living from one text message to another,” says
Tetiana Kharko,
32, whose brother,
Serhii Volynskyi,
is a 30-year-old marine commander. He’s an adoring father, and his household has had no phrase of him since he was taken prisoner. “There are no resets” for his or her accumulating fear, Ms. Kharko says.
“The only comfort is they are no longer under direct threat of dying from combat,” says
Mariia Netreba,
24. Her husband, Mykola, is a quiet military-history buff who made her espresso every morning earlier than the invasion. Mrs. Netreba and her husband are from Mariupol, and she or he says she wept for 2 weeks straight over the lack of her house and what destiny awaits Mykola as a prisoner of battle.
Another captive is
Denys Prokopenko,
30, commander of the Azov Regiment. In late April, Mr. Krotevych described him to me as “the linchpin on which the whole defense of Mariupol and the morale of all Azov servicepeople rests.” His spouse, Kateryna, 27, wears a marriage band etched with mountains; she proudly remembers how she as soon as beat her athletic husband’s snowboarding pace file and the way he proposed to her on a backpacking journey in Norway.
Someone leaked Mrs. Prokopenko’s contact data on the Russian internet, and she or he now receives menacing calls every day. She doesn’t dare change her quantity, and she or he solutions each time: “I get this feeling that my husband could be calling me from an unknown number.” Asked how she’s holding up, she stiffens her jaw and says Denys’s “strength has rubbed off on me a bit.”
Russia is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, which enumerate the rights of prisoners of battle, together with humane therapy, entry to medical care and safety from acts of violence, intimidation, insult, public curiosity and reprisal. Soldiers might be prosecuted for battle crimes, however not merely for partaking in fight.
Mrs. Prokopenko says {that a} situation of give up was that the International Committee of the Red Cross would monitor the standing of the Mariupol prisoners, but it surely hasn’t. “The problem with the Red Cross is they are always politically neutral,” she says. “All we hear are general phrases when we ask why there is no monitoring there.”
Mirella Hodeib,
a communications coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross, mentioned by electronic mail that “visits to prisoners of war on all sides in recent months have allowed the ICRC to inform hundreds of families about their loved ones. Many more families need answers.” The Red Cross declined to offer details about “specific cases or the overall conditions or treatment” or the variety of POWs.
The Mariupol prisoners of battle could also be particularly susceptible as a result of they embody members of the Azov Regiment. When Russia started its aggression in opposition to Ukraine in 2014, the Western press reported that this unit included members who espoused neo-Nazi ideology. This spring Mr. Krotevych acknowledged there had been “some individuals who hold Nazi views” however mentioned the unit had dishonorably discharged them.
Russian propagandists proceed to repeat
Vladimir Putin’s
declare that he’s “de-Nazifying” Ukraine.
Leonid Slutsky,
a deputy of the Russian Duma, lately advised officers ought to “think carefully” about imposing the dying penalty on prisoners from the Azov Regiment: “They do not deserve to live.”
Some Russian lawmakers and commentators have referred to as for the Mariupol defenders to be placed on trial. Russian media has reported that Russia’s Ministry of Justice has sought to declare the Azov Regiment a terrorist group. “Nazi criminals should not be exchanged,” State Duma Chairman
Vyacheslav Volodin
mentioned final month. “Our position should be unchanged: These are war criminals and we must do everything so that they stand trial.”
Last week a court docket within the Russian-controlled territory of Donetsk delivered dying sentences for 2 Britons and one Moroccan who had fought with Ukrainian forces round Mariupol. U.Okay. Foreign Secretary
Liz Truss
characterised the defendants as prisoners of battle and denounced the “sham judgment with absolutely no legitimacy.” The troopers of Mariupol are liable to comparable present trials.
The perils don’t finish there. “The people captured by Russia are in deadly risk because they can be raped, tortured, beaten, injured, killed,” says
Oleksandra Matviichuk,
head of the Kyiv-based Center for Civil Liberties, a human-rights nonprofit.
Russia has additionally captured civilians, together with human-rights activists, politicians and journalists. It occupies an estimated 20% of Ukrainian territory. “They want to use these people as a bargaining chip” for political concessions, says
Olha Reshetylova,
co-founder of the Media Initiative for Human Rights, a Ukrainian nongovernmental group. Russia additionally desires to “destabilize the political situation” in Ukraine through the use of prisoner exchanges to pit the pursuits of the households of captives in opposition to these of the victims of Russian battle crimes. The Geneva Conventions embody sweeping protections for civilians, together with a prohibition on taking hostages.
If Russia violates the legal guidelines of battle, Ukrainians and their supporters could marvel if a negotiated settlement of the battle can be definitely worth the paper it’s printed on.
Ms. Melchior is a Journal editorial web page author.
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