A battalion of Ukrainian prisoners of war will soon be sent to the front line to fight against their own country, according to State media.
The soldiers have taken an oath of allegiance, but the move may still be a violation of international laws on the conduct of war: the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War states that “no prisoner of war may at any time be sent to or detained in areas where he may be exposed to the fire of the combat zone,” nor shall they “be employed on labour which is of an unhealthy or dangerous nature.”
The Ukrainian prisoners of war in the “Bogdan Khmelnitsky” battalion have taken an oath of allegiance to Russia and will soon be sent into combat, but no details of exactly how this structure is organised have been made public. It was reported only that they were “recruited,” according to state media.
According to The Institute for the Study of War, these units will operate within the larger Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) formation “Kaskad” and in the Zaporizhzhya region.
Both regions are going through difficult times. Russia has launched a new offensive near Avdiivka on the border of Donetsk. Zaporizhzhya became the centre of Ukraine’s counter-offensive, where forces hoped to overcome the fortified Russian defences and break through the territory all the way to the Sea of Azov, effectively cutting Russian territory in the area in half, but they failed.
