“Now you will be eternal workers”

Russian soldiers recently released from Ukrainian captivity were sent to the front line

Former prisoners recruited by the Ministry of Defense, who were captured in Ukraine and returned to Russia under the exchange procedure, were sent back to the front line. They were brought to Novoazovsk, a city on the territory of the self-proclaimed DPR, and announced that they would now dig trenches at a training ground. The former prisoners themselves reported this to Kholod. We'll tell you what we know about it.

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About 30 Russian soldiers, who were released from Ukrainian captivity and returned to Russia in the summer of 2023 through an exchange procedure, were again sent to the occupied territory, two of them told Kholod. For the last two months they were kept in a military unit in Moscow, and at the beginning of August they promised to transport them to Rostov - from there they would be distributed to hospitals and sent for rehabilitation. But instead, in mid-August, former prisoners, including the wounded, were sent to Novoazovsk and settled at a training ground where recruits are trained.

“We arrived, got off the Urals, and they told us: “Now you will be eternal workers,” recalls one of the former prisoners. According to him, they were informed that they would be engaged in manual labor: digging trenches at training grounds. “I thought: have you been captured again?” - says another interlocutor of Kholod (the editors do not mention their names for security reasons).

The training ground in Novoazovsk is not on the front line, but several tens of kilometers from it, says one of the military men.

Most of the military men who were brought to Novoazovsk were former prisoners recruited from the colonies by the Ministry of Defense. Moreover, one of them’s contract ended on the day of arrival in Novoazovsk; another had a contract expiring in 10 days; for the rest - in one and a half to two months, says one of Kholod’s interlocutors.

This group included former prisoners and two ex-prisoners who fought as part of the Wagner PMC; their contracts expired in the spring. In Novoazovsk they were offered to conclude new contracts - this time with the Ministry of Defense - and when they refused, they were sent home: they put them in a car that was driving towards Rostov. True, they were not given any documents: no passports, no pardon papers, Kholod’s interlocutors say.

about the fact that Russian military personnel released from captivity are involved in manual labor in the combat zone, but are not given weapons in their hands Former prisoner Pavel Guguev spoke in an interview with Ukrainian blogger Dmitry Karpenko . He fought under a contract with the Ministry of Defense, was captured, returned through the exchange procedure to Russia and, from the territory of a military unit in Moscow, gave an interview to a Ukrainian via video link. Guguev claimed that former prisoners were “used as laborers,” without explaining how he knew this.

Is it possible to return former prisoners to war?

The Geneva Convention for the Treatment of Prisoners of War prohibits the use of prisoners returned to their home country for active military service.

Russia accuses Ukraine of violating this rule. in February Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova said that the Ukrainian authorities, by sending soldiers returning from captivity to the front, were violating “the moral norms of humanism and mercy,” and called on the international community to “promote an immediate end to this destructive practice.”

In July 2023 , it became known that the commanders of the Azov regiment, captured by Russia and handed over as part of an exchange to Turkey as a neutral party, returned to Ukraine and were planning to go to the front again. Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov then called this a violation of the agreements that the parties reached during the exchange. According to the agreement, Azov fighters were to remain in Turkey until the end of the war.

There is also evidence that former Russian prisoners are also sent to war after liberation. in March 2023 The Commissioner for Human Rights in the Chelyabinsk Region stated that some of the exchanged soldiers “returned to the Northern Military District zone.” In December 2022, the Chita authorities spoke about a military man who died in Ukraine while going to the front after returning from captivity. In Ukraine, in the winter of 2023, two Russian soldiers were recorded who were captured for the second time.

At the same time, in both Russia and Ukraine, legislation does not allow voluntarily leaving military service during the war, even for those who were captured. In Russia, all contracts signed with the Ministry of Defense, after the announcement of mobilization in September 2022, actually became indefinite: according to the decree of Vladimir Putin, you can resign only for health reasons, by a court verdict or upon reaching retirement age.

What happens to other prisoners who return to Russia?

“Cold” told about the fate of Russian soldiers who were captured and spent several months in the same basement on the territory of Ukraine. After the exchange in June 2023, they were placed in a military unit in Moscow. There they gave evidence to the Investigative Committee and the FSB and waited for representatives of the military units to which each of them was assigned to come for them. Several dozen former prisoners - mobilized and contract soldiers - were indeed taken to different regions. And the former prisoners remained on the territory of the Moscow unit for two months.

All the former prisoners with whom Kholod spoke said that they did not want to return to the war. According to them, during interrogations, Ukrainians told Russian soldiers that if they were captured a second time, they would be killed.