Ukrainian POWs Being Forced to Fight for Russia
What does one do in such a situation?
It is undoubtedly a dilemma if you are one of the unfortunate men from Ukraine who now finds himself in a battalion of POWs being forced to engage in combat against your own country.
Russia says a battalion of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) will soon be sent to the front lines, state media said in a report on how they will fight against their own country (Batallion of Ukraine Prisoners).
Forcing prisoners to fight against their country violates Geneva Convention rules on the treatment of prisoners-of-war, but of course, such silly little conventions never stopped Russia before. I mean, lest we forget, this whole war was launched to “stave off” an imminent Ukrainian invasion back in 2022. A country that so openly mocks truth and reality will have no problem forcing traumatized warriors to take up arms against their kin. Nonetheless, Russia denies having forced them.
Russia claims the troops have taken an oath of allegiance, but the move could still be a violation of international laws concerning warfare. It also raises questions about the need to use POWs, questions in particular about the state and quality of Russia’s forces as they suffer high casualties on the battlefield (Batallion of Ukraine Prisoners).
Russia has made a public relations show about the 70 Ukrainian prisoners joining them to fight inside the country. The “See, Ukrainians are being forced to fight against their will” positioning is probably Moscow’s attempt to counter the Russian battalion, known as the Siberian Battalion. Other Russian nationals regularly conduct raids across the border into Russia. Ukraine has claimed that the Russians fighting for them traveled from Russia and were never prisoners of war, which jibes with what the head of the Russian battalion himself says.
It would be nice to imagine that the 70 soldiers taking up arms against their homeland were doing so to put themselves in positions where they could break a Russian offensive from behind the lines. Perhaps conditions in the camps were so horrible that they figured, “What the hell.” We will never know, but if they are indeed fighting, we can pretty much rest assured that these 70 soldiers will soon be 70 more victims of this war. Either they will get shot by the Russian troops who form lines to the immediate rear of the front-line fighters to prevent desertions, or they will hunted down by their Ukrainian brothers.
There is speculation that due to the atrociously high casualty numbers as Russia tries to take Avdviika, it has resorted to using the POWs.
Last month, Russia launched a renewed offensive near Avdiivka, a small town on the edge of occupied Donetsk. Since the fighting began, its forces have made some advances and have effectively surrounded a pocket of Ukrainian defenders. But that progress has come at a high cost for Russia, both in troops and vehicles (Russia’s Paying for a New Assault).
Whatever the case, it is once again proof of how vile and nasty the disease of modern Russia is. While there are many good people in the country, sadly, the culture I was a part of for 30 years is sick and highly contagious. And to the Putinists, who defend or doubt what I write about Russia — идите на хуй.