DONETSK, Ukraine - On the road from Donetsk towards the small suburb of Makiyivka, a small white bus rattles through a Russian-separatist checkpoint. Through its windows, the wary-looking faces of several men are just visible. They are Ukrainian prisoners of war who are being sent on a work detail, among the more than 300 Ukrainians still being held prisoner in Russian-occupied zones.
None of the vehicles passing through here is stopped and checked, but the bus with the Ukrainian prisoners does attract some attention from the Russian-separatist fighters manning the checkpoint.
“What scumbags they are!” two of the fighters shout laughingly at each other as the bus rumbles away. Their commander isn’t amused.
“Don’t act like kids!” he screams at the two young fighters, who quickly apologize and return to their duties – fetching cold water for some of the older fighters.
The checkpoint commander, who introduces himself only as “Sasha,” will not allow a journalist to follow the bus or talk to the Ukrainian prisoners.
“They’re going to work,” Sasha says curtly, staring at me over his sunglasses like a bossy high school teacher. “Don’t even try to talk to them, or you’ll have problems.”
I get into the taxi I hired and it pulls away from the checkpoint. As the separatist post disappears into the far distance, I ask the driver, Vitaly, to try to catch up with the bus. Vitaly, who’s 29 and whose wife works for the self-proclaimed authorities in Donetsk, doesn’t want his full name to be published for fear of reprisals against his spouse.
“My guess is that the bus will go to Khartsyszk,” Vitaliy says, as we accelerate along the rather dilapidated highway leading into the heart of the separatist-occupied territories.
Sure enough, just as the taxi passes the sign for Khartsyszk, the white bus pops into view again, heading towards the north of this industrialized town located to the east of the separatist stronghold of Donetsk. It looks like the prisoners are being sent to work on repairs to one of the small towns in the area that were damaged in last summer’s fighting. The area, which was the scene of fierce fighting as Ukraine’s military advanced, is now back under full separatist control since the Russian army’s intervention to help them last August.
The bus slows and lurches to a halt on a section of damaged road. Five Russian-separatist fighters are there, waiting for it, and randomly checking the few cars that pass by.
The Ukrainian prisoners exit the bus one-by-one, all wearing civilian clothes, making it hard to distinguish them from regular civilians. There are only eight of them – all apparently fit enough to work in the searing summer sun on an unshaded road.
They are ordered to clear dirt from the road surface – a desultory task seemingly designed more as an insult than as a much-needed job that has to be done. Next, the prisoners are told to fill in some trenches by the side of the road. Apparently, the Russian-separatist forces aren’t expecting to have to defend this area again, which since the advances they made after the Minsk I agreement and “ceasefire” is no longer close to the front.
Sweat pours from the faces of the Ukrainians as they labor in the heat, and they don’t appear to be given any water. Although prisoners of war can be put to work under the Geneva Conventions, it’s not clear if the separatists are following their provisions to the letter, as proper work conditions must be provided for working prisoners.
The tough-looking group of fighters, armed with assault rifles and small arms, oversees the prisoner work detail. But approaching them and attempting to talk to them turns out not to be the best of ideas.
“Halt!” shouts one of the soldiers, aiming his weapon at me, “What do you think you’re doing here?” he shouts, as two of his fellow fighters rush towards us.
I’m told by the fighters overseeing the prisoner work detail, in no uncertain terms, to leave Khartsyzk immediately. Although there’s no explicit provision in the Geneva Conventions preventing the press from talking to prisoners of war, and journalists are not bound by them, the detaining party is within its rights to prevent reporters interviewing prisoners.
Back in Donetsk, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic told the Kyiv Post that “no violence is being used against Ukrainian prisoners.” Asked why the press wasn’t allowed to talk to the prisoners, the spokeswoman, who would only give her first name “Yulia,” said that the authorities in Donetsk “regularly organize press tours.”
Also according to the “Defense Ministry” the prisoners are treated “properly” and in full compliance with international law.
“However, it’s difficult to comment on the issue,” Yulia the spokeswoman said when asked if the Russian-separatists fully observe the Geneva Conventions with regard to the treatment of prisoners.
“The Ukrainian authorities have ratified the Geneva Conventions, so they have to apply them to the soldiers that they’ve captured and hold in prison. We cannot ratify [the conventions] because the international community doesn’t recognize us. However, we try to act according to them.”
Meanwhile, there seems little hope that prisoners from either side will be freed soon – the Minsk II agreements of Feb. 12, which foresaw an “all-for-all” swap of prisoners held by the warring sides, are becoming increasingly irrelevant with the further fighting and violations of the supposed “ceasefire.”
Both sides have halted the exchanges of prisoners, which are supposed to monitored by Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitors in Ukraine, amid mutual recriminations and accusations of bad faith. And both sides have continued to take more prisoners in the regular armed clashes.
And until some measure of trust can be restored between the two sides, there seems little prospect of further prisoner exchanges in the near future. In the meantime, Ukrainian prisoners seem set to continue to suffer back-breaking punishment in the searing summer heat.
