Despite considerable hype from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his administration, the last exchange of prisoners in April appears to have been a win for the Russian-controlled Donbas militants. It was they who dictated who would be released and how many, and they who have left themselves most of the POWs and civilian hostages, including people both they and Russia have used for anti-Ukrainian propaganda.
Like Russia’s FSB, the militants in the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics (DPR and LPR) regularly produce videoed “confessions” that have almost certainly been tortured out of men who are totally under their control. Any such videos, claiming that men have deserted, feel abandoned or “have discovered” that there are no Russian soldiers or mercenaries in the Donbas, cannot be viewed as credible, with the same applying to degrading video stunts for Russian propaganda. All of this is in grave violation of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of POWs.