Russia sent a unit of Ukrainian POWs into battle against their own countrymen, analysts say
They were trained and sent back to fight in the frontline Donetsk region, the reports said.
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But Ukrainian intelligence officials disputed the Russian reports, claiming they were part of a disinformation operation.
“As of now, this is yet another IPSO [information and psychological operation] of the occupiers and yet another public war crime of the Russian invaders,” Andriy Yusov, of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, told the Kyiv Post newspaper on Thursday.
The POW unit is said to be called the Bogdan Khmelnitsky battalion, after a Cossack warlord who in the 15th century brought parts of what is now Ukraine under Moscow’s control.
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The ISW notes that “the use of POWs in military activities on the side of the power that has captured them” is banned under the Geneva Conventions, which Russia claims to uphold.
According to reports, Russian troops even recently used Ukrainian POWs as human shields in combat.