Ukrainian prisoners of war appear to be systematically subjected to abuse by Russia. And the International Committee of the Red Cross is powerless to stop it. This is causing deep bitterness among Ukrainians towards a growingly ignored international humanitarian law.
Last year, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) published a major report on the status of global compliance with international humanitarian law, warning that its legitimacy is at risk due to a lack of respect, deliberate violations, and expedient interpretations that threaten to turn it into “a justification for violence rather than a shield for humanity”.
The fundamental documents of international humanitarian law – or IHL – are the four Geneva Conventions adopted in 1949, which also mandate the ICRC to promote IHL and provide humanitarian assistance to victims of war and violence.
Just over 75 years later, IHL is on shaky ground globally. In addition to the concerns outlined in the ICRC report, critics argue that it is outdated or that the mechanisms and organisations meant to uphold it – such as the ICRC itself – are failing in their mandates.
Evident double standards on the part of countries that hold disproportionate sway over the levers of international justice have helped fuel the sense of crisis and disillusionment. Ukraine is often cited as an example of where Western powers – at least until Donald Trump returned to the US presidency – have insisted on IHL being upheld. But even in Ukraine, people are increasingly questioning the relevance of IHL, and the institutions tasked with promoting adherence to it.
Since Russia first occupied Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014, the country’s government has appealed to international law to bolster its cause, bringing several partially successful cases against Russia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another Russian official for alleged war crimes.
Neither of these actions have had any discernible restraining effect, while Russia’s status as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council seems to give it licence to act with impunity – much as America has used its status on the council to shield itself and its allies.
“It makes [IHL] a joke,” Ukrainian human rights activist turned army officer Maksym Butkevych, who spent over two years as a prisoner of war in Russia, told The New Humanitarian. “You disobeyed and there is no penalty, especially if you are a permanent member of the Security Council.”
Perhaps more than any other issue, Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war (PoWs) – and the perception that the ICRC has failed to stop or even mitigate abuses – has driven deepening scepticism about IHL in Ukraine. The PoWs are not only captives in an armed conflict; they have become part of an information war and an assault on values that risks tearing up the rules designed to protect them.
The “Moscow Convention”
Around the same time that the ICRC released its report on the status of IHL, a coalition of Ukrainian government offices, ministries, and civil society organisations published what they call the Moscow Convention. The document turns the legal language of the Geneva Conventions on its head to enumerate the abuses Russia has carried out against Ukrainian PoWs – and to accuse the world and the ICRC of essentially condoning these crimes.
“Russia tortures Ukrainian prisoners and does not allow international organisations to visit them. These are direct violations of the Geneva Conventions,” the website reads. “Due to its ‘neutrality’, the Red Cross is silent about Russia’s crimes and allows it to write its own rules.”
The ICRC in Ukraine says the charge is a misunderstanding and a mockery of the laws and values underlying its humanitarian missions and the rules of war.
The Moscow Convention “is an expression of the frustration of the Ukrainian authorities; I understand where it is coming from, and I see the motivation behind it, but I’m very irritated that an element of IHL, the Geneva Conventions, are mocked,” ICRC’s head of delegation in Ukraine, Jürg Eglin, told The New Humanitarian. “Neutrality is not there as a moral concept but is defined as a tool, an instrument through which things can be achieved that could not be done otherwise.”
The 1949 Third Geneva Convention includes unambiguous legal articles on the treatment of PoWs, stipulating, among other things: protection from violence, including torture and collective punishment; provision of adequate medical treatment, food, clothing, hygiene and exercise; regular correspondence; and confidential visits from the ICRC, which is designated to monitor conditions of detention and inform relatives of POW’s whereabouts.
Thousands of Ukrainian PoWs experience the opposite. “Name to me any single article of the Geneva Convention regarding PoWs that was observed,” Butkevych said, referencing his time in Russian detention. “Well, they didn’t kill us on the spot, which they did to others.”
Russia is holding thousands of PoWs and Ukrainian civilians in over 100 places of detention in Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories, according to Ukrainian human rights groups and the governmental inter-agency Coordinating Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. The actual number of people is not known, as Russia often does not fulfil its obligation to inform Ukraine about the prisoners it holds.
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Ukrainian prisoners of war and the crisis of international law
