Negotiators from Russia are primarily interested in the repatriation of conscripts and Chechens from Ukrainian captivity, and at times, Ukraine has to persuade them to take back their citizens.
This was reported in an interview with Ukrinform by Bohdan Okhrimenko, head of the Secretariat of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
“Our negotiators sometimes have the task, aside from reaching agreements on the return of our citizens, to convince the Russians to take their own people. They have a huge number of forcibly mobilized soldiers, some of whom were recruited from prisons. Many of these people come from occupied territories or from the so-called ‘L/DPR’ republics, whom Russia does not consider its citizens… They are not interested in small ethnic groups, except for Chechens. For some reason, they disregard their own citizens but are willing to take Chechens. There may also be interest when a conscript is taken prisoner, as Putin told his electorate that conscripts would not be sent to fight, yet they are indeed participating, and we have shown this,” Okhrimenko said.
According to Okhrimenko, the Ukrainian side takes advantage of Russia’s interest in repatriating Chechens. “Therefore, sometimes we exchange 40 of our prisoners for 150 of theirs,” he added.
The representative of the Coordination Headquarters emphasized that holding Ukrainian prisoners in Chechnya is a violation of the Geneva Convention, which stipulates that they must be held exclusively in POW camps.
“As far as the HUR (Defence Intelligence) officers know, these prisoners are being held in Chechnya unofficially, in private factories and repurposed buildings,” he explained.
Okhrimenko also confirmed reports that Ukrainian POWs are being held in Chechnya in critical infrastructure facilities, such as oil depots, to protect against Ukrainian drone strikes.
“Imagine, in the territory of an oil extraction or refinery facility, there are hangars with our prisoners. Do we have a moral right to strike, knowing this? Indeed, this restrains our Defense Forces,” he said.
According to Okhrimenko, the Chechens consider these methods of handling prisoners as military cunning, although they are, in fact, violations of the Geneva Convention and international law, which prohibit using prisoners of war as protective elements.
As previously reported, according to the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, more than 150 Ukrainian soldiers may be held in Chechnya, with 36 of them listed as “missing persons,” although the likelihood of them being in Grozny is very high.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted that Chechen paramilitary groups purchase Ukrainian POWs from Russian soldiers to later exchange them for Chechen soldiers captured by the Ukrainian armed forces.
In early December 2024, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, posted a video of his meeting with Ukrainian POWs and threatened to use them as human shields against drones attacking the republic.
