- Pro-Ukrainian ‘partisans’ offer to hand over prisoners to Belgorod governor Gladkov; Gladkov calls them ‘bastards’ and ‘fascists’ in response Meduza
- Pro-Ukrainian fighters capture Russian soldiers during raid on Russian soil The Telegraph
- Russian Volunteer Corps and Freedom of Russia Legion report capture of Russian regular army soldiers in Belgorod Oblast, call governor for meeting Yahoo News
- Ukrainian ‘terrorists capture’ two Russian soldiers in Belgorod | ‘Most Likely They Killed Them’ Hindustan Times
- Ukraine-Backed Troops Capture Russian Soldiers in Cross-Border Foray The Wall Street Journal
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: prisoners
Woman charged in connection with escape of 2 Philadelphia prisoners identified as Xianni Stalling – WPVI-TV
- Woman charged in connection with escape of 2 Philadelphia prisoners identified as Xianni Stalling WPVI-TV
- A 21-year-old woman helped set up the Philly jailbreak and has been charged, police say The Philadelphia Inquirer
- Philadelphia prison break: Manhunt underway for Ameen Hurst, Nasir Grant who escaped Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center WPVI-TV
- Philadelphia prison break: Woman arrested, charged for aiding in escape of 2 prisoners, police say FOX 29 Philadelphia
- Pa. Department of Corrections to provide analysis of Philadelphia Correctional Center after inmates CBS Philadelphia
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‘A Quick Death or a Slow Death’: Prisoners Choose War to Get Lifesaving Drugs – Yahoo News
- ‘A Quick Death or a Slow Death’: Prisoners Choose War to Get Lifesaving Drugs Yahoo News
- Russia recruited HIV infected troops with promise of anti-virals: NYT Business Insider
- Ukraine: Russian prisoners in Ukraine choose war to get lifesaving drugs Indiatimes.com
- ‘A quick death or a slow death’: Russian prisoners choose war to get HIV drugs The Seattle Times
- A fifth of Russian prisoners recruited to fight in Ukraine are HIV positive, with convicts promised anti-viral drugs if they agreed to fight: report Yahoo News
- View Full Coverage on Google News
A dramatic helmet-cam video shows Ukrainian troops storming a Russian trench and capturing 2 prisoners of war – Yahoo News
- A dramatic helmet-cam video shows Ukrainian troops storming a Russian trench and capturing 2 prisoners of war Yahoo News
- VIDEO: Ukrainian troops storm a Russian trench and capture 2 POWs Business Insider
- Putin’s army thwarts attack attempt by Ukraine; Forces Kyiv’s troops to flee | Watch Hindustan Times
- Ukrainian Drone ‘Dodges & Demolishes’ Russia’s Terrifying TOS-1A Weapon System In A Scintillating Video — Watch EurAsian Times
- WATCH: Ukrainian soldiers using cars to toe mobile 2B9 Vasilek automatic 82mm gun-mortar Firstpost
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CIA boss talks nuclear weapons and prisoners with Putin’s spy chief
LONDON/WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns was expected to caution President Vladimir Putin’s spy chief at talks on Monday about the consequences of any use of nuclear weapons, and to raise the issue of U.S. prisoners in Russia, a White House official said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Russian news agencies that a U.S.-Russia meeting had taken place in the Turkish capital Ankara but declined to give details about the participants or the subjects discussed.
The White House spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Burns was meeting Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service.
It was the first known high-level, face-to-face U.S.-Russian contact since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
“He is not conducting negotiations of any kind. He is not discussing settlement of the war in Ukraine,” the spokesperson said.
“He is conveying a message on the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, and the risks of escalation to strategic stability … He will also raise the cases of unjustly detained U.S. citizens.”
Burns is a former U.S. ambassador to Russia who was sent to Moscow in late 2021 by President Joe Biden to caution Putin about the troop build-up around Ukraine.
“We briefed Ukraine in advance on his trip. We firmly stick to our fundamental principle: nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” the spokesperson said.
Putin has repeatedly said Russia will defend its territory with all available means, including nuclear weapons, if attacked. He says the West has engaged in nuclear blackmail against Russia.
MANY OUTSTANDING ISSUES
The remarks raised particular concern in the West after Moscow declared in September that it had annexed four Ukrainian regions that its forces partly control.
The U.S.-Russian contact in Turkey was first reported by Russia’s Kommersant newspaper. The SVR did not respond to a request for comment.
Beyond the war, Russia and the United States have a host of outstanding issues to discuss, ranging from the extension of a nuclear arms reduction treaty and a Black Sea grain deal to a possible prisoner swap and the Syrian civil war.
U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, asked at a summit of the Group of 20 (G20) leading economies in Indonesia about the meeting in Turkey, said the United Nations was not involved.
Biden said this month he hoped Putin would be willing to discuss seriously a swap to secure the release of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, who has been sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony on drugs charges.
Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who holds American, British, Canadian and Irish passports, was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in a Russian jail after being convicted of spying, a charge he denied.
Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer jailed in the United States, has been mentioned as a person who could be swapped for Griner and Whelan in any prisoner exchange.
Reporting by Reuters; Additional reporting by Jonathan Spicer in Turkey; Editing by Gareth Jones
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Roman Abramovich Played Role in Russia-Ukraine Prisoner Swap
The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Russian oligarch
Roman Abramovich,
and a top Ukrainian negotiator played key roles in months of talks that led to the release of more than 250 prisoners by Russia and Ukraine this week in a broader deal involving Turkey, according to U.S., Ukrainian and Saudi officials and others familiar with the negotiations.
Mr. Abramovich personally accompanied 10 prisoners, including British and American detainees captured by Russia in Ukraine, onto a private jet that took them to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from Russia earlier this week, Saudi officials said. Other people familiar with the situation confirmed Mr. Abramovich’s involvement.
The flight was one aspect of a sprawling diplomatic agreement that led to the release of more than 200 Ukrainians, including some that were flown to Turkey, along with 55 Russians and a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician, who were returned to Russia. The release included soldiers involved in a monthslong siege in the city of Mariupol that became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
‘Until the last person crossed the border, there was such huge tension,’ said Rustem Umerov, a Ukrainian negotiator who was involved in the prisoner swap.
Photo:
Sergei Kholodilin/Associated Press
The unusual cast of characters involved in the agreement shows how Ukraine is reaching beyond its traditional partners to secure diplomatic breakthroughs when Ukrainian forces are making gains against Russia on the battlefield.
Saudi Arabia’s involvement was perhaps the most surprising aspect of the exchange, which was also brokered by Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan.
Until the prisoner negotiations, the Saudi kingdom played little role in any diplomacy surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war, as Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman
has drawn closer to Russia in recent years.
“Our aim is to save people, and we needed a country who is strong and independent with leverage over our northern neighbor,” said Rustem Umerov, a Ukrainian negotiator who was involved in the prisoner swap. “We shared the risks by separating the tracks. For foreign POWs, we cooperated with Saudi Arabia, and Ukrainian POWs, we cooperated with Turkey.”
Prince Mohammed this year has rejected American pressure to produce more oil, elevating energy prices and helping Russia fund its attack on Ukraine. Prince Mohammed is only now re-emerging after years of international isolation following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi government agents in 2018.
Getting involved in diplomacy around the war doesn’t mean the prince is backing away from his support for Russia. People familiar with the government’s thinking say he instead used the talks to rehabilitate his international image.
Released prisoners of war arriving in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday.
Photo:
SAUDI PRESS AGENCY/VIA REUTERS
Mr. Abramovich, the former owner of Chelsea Football Club, has acted as a backchannel between Russia and Ukraine since the early days of the war, showing up during peace negotiations in Istanbul and helping to negotiate a deal in July that unlocked Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports, according to officials and others familiar with the talks. He also played a central role in the prisoner negotiations, said Mr. Umerov.
“He facilitated all the POW-exchange matters with Russian officials, including different agencies and ministries and contributed to their release effort,” said Mr. Umerov, who is the special envoy of Ukraine President
Volodymyr Zelensky.
Saudi Arabia’s role in the prisoner swap resulted from contact between Ukrainian and Saudi officials in March of this year, according to Saudi and U.S. officials. Mr. Umerov flew to the kingdom in March and met that month with Saudi officials including the kingdom’s foreign minister, the officials said.
At the time, Prince Mohammed saw the talks as an opportunity to assert his influence on the world stage, and outflank rival countries, like Qatar, that might have played a mediating role in the conflict, Saudi officials said.
Throughout the war, Turkey, long a Saudi rival, has been a key broker in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Turkey has hosted two rounds of unsuccessful peace negotiations and helped broker the grain agreement signed in Istanbul in July.
Turkey also tried unsuccessfully to negotiate the evacuation of fighters from Mariupol during the Russian siege of the Azovstal Steel plant in April and May. The soldiers defending the plant, included many members of the Azov Battalion, which has been a target of Russian propaganda around the war because of the inclusion of far-right activists in its ranks. The siege ended on May 16 when hundreds of the fighters were captured by Russia.
Saudi and Russian officials remained in contact over the following months, negotiating toward a possible agreement. Prince Mohammed was personally involved in the negotiations, Saudi and American officials said.
Mr. Abramovich played a role as a backchannel to Russia, leveraging his personal relationship with both Mr. Putin and the crown prince, according to people familiar with the negotiations. The Russian oligarch visited Saudi Arabia in August and met with the crown prince. As the talks gathered steam, Mr. Umerov discussed the prisoner swap with the crown prince in Riyadh on Tuesday, said a U.S. official.
Ukrainian officials said they initially pushed to release a group of 50 prisoners of war, but through diplomacy unlocked a deal for even more.
“It was cooked for a very long, long time,” Mr. Umerov said of the deal. “Until the last person crossed the border, there was such huge tension.”
Saudi Arabia was the first to disclose the prisoner swap on Wednesday, announcing that 10 foreign nationals had flown to Riyadh from Russia. Saudi officials alerted the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh that two Americans were on the plane. Saudi Arabia’s deputy foreign minister, Saud al-Sati, a former ambassador to Russia, also played a key role in the talks and accompanied the freed detainees on the plane, Saudi and U.S. officials said.
The foreigners included three men—two British and one Moroccan—who had been sentenced to death in June by a court controlled by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine after being captured in Mariupol, British officials confirmed. Another British man died in custody. The men were among thousands of people who joined Ukraine’s foreign legion to help the country fight Russia’s invasion this year.
Also among them were two men from Alabama, Andy Huynh and Alex Drueke, U.S. military veterans who joined Ukraine’s armed forces in the battle against Russia, said U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R., Ala.).
—Max Colechester contributed to this article.
Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com, Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com and Stephen Kalin at stephen.kalin@wsj.com
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Ukraine’s Zelensky Warns Against Trial of Prisoners Captured at Azovstal Steel Plant
ODESSA, Ukraine—The leader of a Russian-backed breakaway region in eastern Ukraine announced details of plans to put captured Ukrainian soldiers on trial in Mariupol, a move that Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky
warned would mean an end to all negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.
Denis Pushilin,
head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, told Russian state television Monday that preparations were nearing completion for the trial of soldiers who were captured after holding out for months at Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant. “At this moment we can say that material on 80 cases of Azov crimes is completely ready,” Mr. Pushilin said.
Ukrainian officials have said the trials could begin as early as Wednesday, the country’s Independence Day, which will also mark exactly six months since the war began. They have also released photos that they claim show that pro-Russian officials have constructed a cage to hold defendants on stage at Mariupol’s philharmonic hall, where they say the trials will take place.
Mr. Zelensky said such a trial would cross a red line, and called on world leaders to join him in denouncing it. In June, a court from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic convicted three foreign fighters captured in Mariupol as mercenaries and sentenced them to death. Russia, which recognized Donetsk and the neighboring Luhansk region as independent states earlier this year, has had a moratorium on the death penalty since 1996.
“If this despicable show trial takes place,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video posted online early Monday morning, “Russia will cut itself off from negotiations. There will be no more conversations.”
Ukrainian officials released photos that they claim show that pro-Russian officials have constructed a cage to hold defendants on stage at Mariupol’s philharmonic hall.
Photo:
Ukraine Ministry of Defense
No direct negotiations have taken place between the warring sides in months, and friction has grown in recent weeks as explosions have shaken the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and pro-Ukrainian partisans have stepped up attacks inside Russian-held territory.
Russian troops, who seized the plant in the early days of the war, have been using it as a base from which to shell Ukrainian-held territory across the Dnipro river, according to Ukrainian officials. Russian officials say Ukrainians are shelling the plant, and have threatened to disconnect it from the power grid for what they say are safety reasons.
On Monday morning, Valentyn Reznichenko, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said 42 grad rockets and barrel bombs overnight hit Nikopol, across the Dnipro river from the nuclear plant, injuring at least four people, damaging 50 homes and knocking out electricity for some 2,000 residents. He said the nearby districts of Kryvorizka and Sinelnyk were also shelled.
Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
who has positioned himself as a mediator in the conflict, is planning to speak with Russian President
Vladimir Putin
by phone this week, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
The commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, Valery Zaluzhnyi, said Monday that 9,000 Ukrainian fighters have been killed since the full-scale invasion began in February, according to Ukrainian media. It is the first time Ukraine has announced casualty figures for its military.
Russia hasn’t announced casualty figures for months. Attacks in Russian-held territory—including inside Russia itself—have increased in recent weeks, however.
Ivan Fedorov,
the Ukrainian mayor of the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, posted a video on Telegram on Sunday that he said showed the body of a man killed by pro-Ukrainian partisans.
“Another hot night for the occupiers: explosions are heard in various areas of Melitopol,” he wrote later Sunday night. “The resistance to the Rashists will be hellishly hot every day until they leave our land,” he said, using a term referring to Russia’s expansionist goals.
Over the past week, explosions have also rocked airfields and ammunition depots in Belgorod, a Russian border region, and Crimea, the southern Ukrainian peninsula that Russia seized in 2014.
A Russian soldier in front of destroyed buildings in Mariupol, southern Ukraine.
Photo:
/Associated Press
Mikhail Razvozhaev, head of the Russian-installed government in the Crimean city of Sevastopol, said the city’s air defenses were again active on Sunday night. On Monday morning, he posted a video of himself inspecting bomb shelters.
“The main task of the enemy is to sow panic, and we must not succumb to provocations,” he said. “Sevastopol is under reliable protection.”
Russia has continued rocket strikes on major Ukrainian cities, including Odessa in the south, where a deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations to resume the export of grain from Black Sea ports is being monitored by the Ukrainian military amid constant threats of Russian attack.
Ukrainian soldiers in a village in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
Photo:
David Goldman/Associated Press
Residents collect water from a well in Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Photo:
David Goldman/Associated Press
Officials in Odessa said that its air defenses had intercepted two Russian Kalibr missiles fired from Russian ships on the Black Sea early on Sunday, with three other missiles hitting an agricultural enterprise near the city and damaging grain silos there. Russia didn’t immediately comment on the allegations.
However, military analysts say Russia’s campaign to take control of the rest of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine is flagging. Since capturing the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, pro-Russian forces have pushed on toward Bakhmut. But their advances toward the city have stalled, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, which said the slow progress in the east reveals a fundamental weakness in the Kremlin’s war effort.
“Russian forces have consistently failed to take advantage of tactical breakthroughs to maneuver into Ukrainian rear areas or unhinge significant parts of the Ukrainian defensive lines,” the institute wrote on Sunday. It added that Russia would likely face problems repairing aircraft as a result of Western sanctions, which made replacement parts difficult to obtain.
—Nikita Nikolaienko contributed to this article.
Write to Ian Lovett at ian.lovett@wsj.com and Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com
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Russia dangles freedom to prisoners if they fight in Ukraine. Many are taking the deadly gamble
Over a month-long investigation, CNN has spoken to inmates caught up in Russia’s newest recruitment scheme, along with their relatives and friends. Activists believe hundreds have been approached in dozens of prisons across Russia — from murderers to drug offenders. Some have even been taken from the prison where one high-profile American jailed in Russia, Paul Whelan, is held. His brother David said in a statement in July he had heard ten volunteers had left IK17 in Mordovia for the frontlines in Ukraine
Dozens of chat messages between relatives, reviewed by CNN, detail the tempting rewards offered to fight in Ukraine, where the risk of death is high. The latest Western assessments suggest up to 75,000 Russian troops have been killed or injured since the invasion began (a claim the Kremlin has denied).
One prisoner spoke to CNN from his cramped jail cell, a cat crawling across bunk beds, and a fan clamped on top of an ageing television tried to cool the air between heavily barred windows. Imprisoned for multiple years for drugs offenses, he spoke on condition of anonymity using a contraband smartphone — quite common in Russia’s prison system — to outline the conditions on offer.
“They will accept murderers, but not rapists, pedophiles, extremists, or terrorists”, he said. “Amnesty or a pardon in six months is on offer. Somebody talks about 100,000 rubles a month, another 200,000. Everything is different.” He said the offer was made when unidentified men, believed to be part of a private military contractor’s firm, came to the prison in the first half of July, and that acceptance into the program would lead to two weeks of training in the Rostov region in southern Russia. While he had two years’ service in the military, he said the recruiters did not seem to insist on military experience.
“In my case, if it’s real, then I’m all for it,” the prisoner said. “It can make a real difference for me: be imprisoned for nearly a decade, or get out in six months if you’re lucky. But that’s if you’re lucky. I just want to go home to the children as soon as possible. If this option is possible, then why not?”
The prisoner said 50 inmates had already been selected for recruitment and placed into quarantine in the prison, but he had heard that 400 applied. Rights activists working in the Russian prison system said since the start of July they had been flooded with reports from across Russia from anxious relatives, concerned of the fate of their inmates.
“In the last three weeks [in July], there is a very big wave of this project to recruit thousands of Russian prisoners and send them to the war,” said Vladimir Osechkin, head of Gulagu.net, a prisoner advocacy group.
Osechkin said some were promised a pay-out to their families of five million rubles ($82,000) if they died, but all the financial rewards might never be honored. “There is no guarantee, there’s no real contract. It is illegal”, he said.
Some of the prisoners and their family members appeared keen for the recruitment to go ahead, Osechkin said, echoing the responses of some inmate families seen by CNN.
Osechkin speculated the prisoners were used effectively as bait, to attract the fire of Ukrainian positions and enable the regular Russian military to strike accurately back. “They go first, and when the Ukrainian army sees them, and they strike. Then Russian soldiers see where the Ukrainians are, and bomb the place”.
CNN reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry and penitentiary service (FSIN) for comment on allegations that prisoners are being recruited to fight in Ukraine. Neither responded.
While recruitment is in its early days, the first reports have emerged among family members of injured prisoners being hospitalized in the Russian-backed separatist area of Luhansk.
CNN has viewed chat messages exchanged between relatives of inmates already apparently sent to the frontline. One wife details how she contacted her husband, who lay injured in one Luhansk hospital. The wife said only three prisoners from her husband’s unit of ten were still alive. CNN is aware of the identity of the injured prisoner, but has been unable to confirm his hospitalisation, as separatist medical facilities are veiled in secrecy.
Other messages between relatives also detailed the quiet desperation of prisoners, caught up in a Russian justice system where 99% of cases brought to trial result in conviction, and corruption weighs heavy on an over-burdened penal system. This month, one prisoner messaged his brother on WhatsApp about his decision to go.
Moscow’s manpower options have ebbed over five-plus months of clumsy and gruelling invasion. Russian President Vladimir Putin initially stated no conscripts had been deployed in the war, before his ministry of defense admitted they had withdrawn some from the frontlines after their deployment in apparent error. The Kremlin has said there will be no general mobilization in Russia, perhaps fearing the policy would prove unpopular, especially if losses spread across the population did not significantly alter the battlefield dynamic.
Prison recruitment is, activists and prisoners said, under the auspices of the Wagner private military contractor, which is not subject to the Russian military’s ban on employing convicts. The prisoners have not shared any copies of their contracts with their relatives or activists, so the precise terms or employer remain unclear. Wagner — which works globally and is run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a man known as Putin’s chef — is Russia’s most ubiquitous military contractor. Prigozhin denies ties to Wagner.
The lack of clarity, coupled with the silence of their loved ones, only adds to relative’s anxieties. Oksana, the half-sister of a Russian prisoner who had been offered deployment, said his mother had initially been keen to receive the salary from her son’s service, but, since he vanished from their messaging apps, was beside herself with worry.
“We know he was in Rostov Oblast,” Oksana said, adding he had claimed he was in another prison’s factory. “He rang her on a new WhatsApp number on 10th July and asked her to send a copy of her passport so she would get his wages,” she said. This meant it was less likely he was in prison, she said, as an inmate’s wages from prison labor are usually paid into their own account.
“I am in contact with many relatives and they all have the same scenario: Send passport details. No contact,” she said. “These are the least protected part of the population. Putin said no conscripts would be sent, but they were. With convicts, it will be very hard to reveal they have been sent.” Oksana’s name has been changed due to security concerns.
In late July, the mother received a message from another new number, familiarly written in her son’s broken Russian. It insisted he was healthy, and OK, but gave no details as to his whereabouts. “There is some time left but it is going quickly”, he wrote. “When I can I will call you.”
The mother was later rang by a person introducing themselves as an “accountant,” who pledged to bring her son’s salary in cash to her a week later.
Out now, Sidhu Moosewala’s most-awaited song SYL is all about Punjab rivers and Sikh prisoners : The Tribune India
Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, June 23
Sidhu Moosewala’s first song posthumously, SYL has been released on his YouTube channel. The song is written, sung and composed by the late singer himself. It is produced by MXRCI and the video and artworks are done by Navkaran Brar.
The song revolves around various issues reeling Punjab. Among them, it highlights, Satluj Yamana Link canal issue, Sikh prisoner and the recent agitation against the farm laws.
There are black and white visuals that show Punjab rivers, some shots from the yesteryears of Punjab where people can be seen revolting against various laws, a mention of 1984 genocide. The makers have also included short clips of Shidhu Moosewala.
Watch the song here:
It was on the fateful night of May 28 that Sidhu Moosewala was shot dead in Mansa. After his death, it was announced that all his unfinished work should be handed over to his father Balkaur Singh.
On June 8, in an emotional message during the bhog ceremony of Punjabi singer Shubhdeep Singh, his father Balkaur Singh said, “My son will remain connected to you through his songs. I will take inspiration from him.”
Can Americans fight for Ukraine? Prisoners of war and the laws that protect them explained
LONDON — The Kremlin announced this week that the Geneva Conventions, created to protect soldiers detained during wartime, does not apply to two American volunteers who were captured by Russian forces.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday that the two detainees “were involved in illegal activities on the territory of Ukraine.”
“They should be held responsible for those crimes they have committed,” he said. “Those crimes have to be investigated. … The only thing that is clear is that they have committed crimes. They are not in the Ukrainian army. They are not subject to the Geneva Conventions.”
Yahoo News spoke to Matthew Schmidt, the program coordinator for international affairs and an associate professor of national security at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, who explained the treatment of detainees in Russia and whether it is legal for Americans to fight in Ukraine.
Yahoo News: Is it legal for U.S. citizens to fight for Ukraine?
Matthew Schmidt: The short answer is yes. There are laws from the 19th century that would call this into question. But Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy’s attorney general and brother, declared during the Cuban missile crisis that it was legal for American citizens, Cuban Americans, to go back to Cuba and fight. So that’s the standard that we use today.
How about European countries?
It’s similar in that most European countries have laws from the 19th century that were focused on colonial wars, and that were concerned with preventing their citizens from fighting for, you know, enemy powers in colonial conflicts. Today, it’s really a question of enforcement. And essentially, all of the European countries have agreed to allow their citizens to participate in the war in Ukraine on a volunteer basis and not prosecute them with those old laws.
What does international law say?
International human rights law is focused on your status as a human, then your status as a combatant. And so there are standards of treatment that apply whether or not you’re a combatant, or considered a lawful combatant. So for instance, it’s illegal to torture. This is one of the issues that came up in the U.S. global war on terrorism, where the United States did not declare many captured fighters as formal military personnel and then engaged in what they called enhanced interrogation, which was later admitted to be torture under international law. So these standards still apply. And the United States is in a tricky position in arguing against this because of what the U.S. did during the global war on terror against other nonofficial combatants. And so that’s a problem that the U.S. will face in this case.
What do we know about how Russia treats prisoners of war and detainees?
They don’t follow international human rights standards. So they treat detainees in a way that international law considers torture — sleep deprivation and other means of interrogation that is considered illegal under international law.
How can it be proved whether a detainee was a mercenary or a volunteer?
Under international law, there are six standards that you have to meet. It’s quite strict in order to be considered a mercenary in this case. The second standard is that your primary motivation for fighting is private gain, that is for money or pay. And it would be very hard under Western standards to argue that the captured Americans were mercenaries because it just appears that their primary motivation was not for pay. The pay is well below their standard of living in the United States. And so they’re not really making material gain.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is to begin on Thursday its first trial against a Russian soldier accused of rape. Mikhail Romanov will be tried in absentia, as he is not in Ukrainian custody. Romanov is accused of murdering a civilian in Kyiv on March 9 and then repeatedly raping his wife, according to court files.
It follows the sentencing of a 21-year-old Russian soldier in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial. Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin was sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to shooting a 62-year-old unarmed civilian four days into the invasion.
Ukraine is investigating thousands of alleged war crimes committed by Russian soldiers since the country’s brutal invasion began on Feb. 24. Iryna Venediktova, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, told Reuters that many of those accused are in Russia. Some, however, have been taken as prisoners of war.
Attorney General Merrick Garland made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Tuesday to meet with Venediktova, a Justice Department official said. The two reportedly discussed ways to help Ukraine “identify, apprehend and prosecute those individuals involved in war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.”
With regard to the American detainees, could the Kremlin be retaliating against the 21-year-old Russian’s sentencing last month?
I think it’s easy for us to fall into this idea that the logic of Russian moves here is retaliation. But I think it’s better to think of it as a strategic advantage. So the real rationale for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to push this approach to the American prisoners or other Western fighters is to support his domestic propaganda. It upholds the idea that the war is really about Russia being attacked or threatened by the West. And so holding Western prisoners, especially American prisoners, plays into the narrative that what’s really happening in Ukraine is that the United States and NATO [are] using Ukraine as a proxy for their own war against Russia.
On Wednesday, two British men were sentenced to death in a Russian proxy court for fighting for Ukraine. Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin were charged with “terrorism” in a court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, a breakaway region in the east of Ukraine. Aslin’s family told the BBC that his Russian captors assured him that his execution will be carried out.
Can the U.N. step in to help the prisoners sentenced to death?
They can petition for access, the International Red Cross can petition for access. Of course, the American Embassy can petition for access. But right now they don’t even know the location of the American prisoners. And in the end, Russia is preemptively claiming that the prisoners are guilty of war crimes or may be prosecuted for war crimes. And so by their standard, they don’t have to follow international law.
It’s worth remembering two points. One, that the prisoners are being held apparently in the DNR [Donetsk People’s Republic], which is not Russia. And the DNR is formally not a signatory of any of these applicable laws, and so would not have to follow them, and also has the death penalty. In this case, and on Russian state media several times, prominent figures in the government have floated the idea of using the death penalty against them, even going so far as saying that there’s no other choice because they’re accusing the Americans of committing war crimes against Russian troops and Russian citizens.
