By AFP | 2025-10-09

Russia is responsible for "widespread and systematic violations" of international law in the treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war including "arbitrary killings," according to a report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) published on September 25.

The violations also include "torture, ill-treatment, denial of fair trial rights and unsafe detention and transfer conditions," said the report by the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The report is the result of a mission of three experts tasked by the OSCE to look into Russia's treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

They found that Ukrainian soldiers were not recognized as prisoners of war (POW) by Russia, which "opens the door for criminal prosecution of POWs for mere participation in hostilities."

"The mission documented a high number of arbitrary killings and executions attributable to the Russian Federation, occurring both on the battlefield and in detention," the report said.

Estimates indicate that at least 13,500 members of the Ukrainian armed forces have been detained since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it added.

"Of these, approximately 169 have died in captivity, nearly 6,800 have been released and repatriated, and an estimated 6,300 remain in detention," the report said, denouncing Russia's lack of cooperation in the investigation.

Forty-one of the 57 OSCE member states asked the organization in July to look into Russia's treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

For the report, the experts conducted, among others, interviews with former prisoners of war and had access to written testimonies.

The report said a "particularly egregious case" was the Olenivka penal colony in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region, where "systemic violations occurred."

The experts "would encourage the [International Criminal Court] ICC Office of the Prosecutor to pursue investigations into these violations," the report said, given "the extensive documentation of violations against POWs."

The OSCE has published several reports since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, within the framework of the so-called Moscow Mechanism, highlighting violations that might constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Gruesome pilgrimage

Around 70,000 people -- including civilians and soldiers -- are currently registered as missing, Artur Dobroserdov, Ukraine's commissioner in charge of the issue, said in July.

Soldiers are considered missing until Russia confirms they have them in captivity or a body has been identified.

That is not always possible.

Three years of trench warfare has created swathes of "no man's land" across the front, where bodies cannot be retrieved, meanwhile Russia says it has thousands of unidentified corpses of killed Ukrainian soldiers.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War work to trace them.

But families often find comfort and purpose conducting their own investigations, said Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian coordination center.

"This pilgrimage is very important," he told AFP.

"They want to show to themselves and their loved one -- in the future when they will be released -- that they were not passive and tried to do anything possible," he added.