BREAKING NEWS: Russia uses Ukrainian prisoners of war to form combat units, – ISW

3 min.72

The most recent example was the Russian battalion “Bohdan Khmelnytsky” with Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Russia continues to form combat units using Ukrainian prisoners of war , which is a direct violation of the Geneva Convention for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the Institute for the Study of War writes .

It is known that on August 6, the Volunteer Corps of the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the Russian occupiers had formed the first Ukrainian volunteer brigade “Spetsnaz”, which included Ukrainian prisoners of war and former fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who, as noted, had gone over to the side of the invaders.

“The Russian military formed this brigade by uniting several irregular so-called volunteer units, including the Maksym Kryvonos and Alexei Berest battalions, as well as the Oleksandr Matrosov, Martin Pushkar, and Slobodsky detachments (all of which reportedly consist in part of Ukrainian prisoners of war or Ukrainian soldiers who reportedly defected to Russia),” the report specified.

In particular, one Russian military blogger reported that this new brigade consists of Ukrainian prisoners of war, which is noteworthy, given that the use of these soldiers in combat is a war crime.

The Institute for the Study of War first recorded reports of the Russian occupiers forming combat units with the involvement of Ukrainian prisoners of war in November 2022. The most recent example was the Russian battalion “Bogdan Khmelnytsky” with Ukrainian prisoners of war, which in December 2023 operated as part of the “Cascade” formation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in the west of the Donetsk region.

“Russia’s use of Ukrainian prisoners of war in combat formations is likely a violation of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War, which prohibits the use of prisoners of war in hostilities on the side of the force that captured them and establishes that “no prisoner of war may in any case be sent or held in areas where he may come under fire in a combat zone,” and may not be “engaged in work that is harmful to health or dangerous,” the analysts recalled.

(c)UNIAN 2026