Russia actively declares that “the Kyiv regime refuses to take away the Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers who have surrendered”. Propaganda also uses prisoners of war to create various videos that promote the thesis that Ukrainians are “better off in captivity than at home”.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to this. They claim that since the full-scale invasion, Russia has been using Ukrainian prisoners of war for its propaganda purposes. Thus, Russia is once again violating international law and the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, according to which prisoners of war have the right to respect for their person and honor and must be protected from acts of violence, intimidation, as well as insults and excessive attention from the public. In addition, Russia violates international law by preventing organizations such as the Red Cross from accessing Ukrainian prisoners of war, which prevents an objective assessment of the conditions of their detention.

The message that Ukraine does not want to take back its prisoners of war is not true. The Ukrainian authorities constantly emphasize that its position is an exchange on the principle of “all for all”. This approach aims to return all Ukrainian prisoners of war as part of a comprehensive exchange. This concept was discussed at the recent Peace Summit in Switzerland. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi noted that working groups will be created on each of the issues and there are already countries that are organizing separate meetings on these topics. At the same time, the Commissioner for Human Rights in Ukraine, Dmytro Lubinets, claims that the only problem in implementing this idea is the reluctance of the Russian side. Russia's reluctance to carry out such an exchange is confirmed by the fact that Ukraine was recently forced to open a third camp for holding Russian prisoners of war.

Ukraine is always ready for prisoner exchanges and participates in them at the first opportunity. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 3 thousand Ukrainians have already been returned from captivity, and on June 25 another exchange took place.

The message that the Ukrainian military in Russian captivity is “better than at home” is also untrue. This misinformation is refuted by reports from international human rights activists. For example, a report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for the period from December 1, 2023 to February 29, 2024 states that “torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian internment sites is widespread and systematic, and conditions the contents do not meet the requirements of international humanitarian law”. “85% of the 60 prisoners of war interviewed by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights provided detailed information about how Russian soldiers or officials tortured or mistreated them while in captivity. The most common methods of torture were beatings, electric shocks, threats of the death penalty, mock executions, and awkward positions”, the report noted. Ukraine provides full access to international organizations to places where Russian prisoners of war are held, which Russia does not do.

By spreading such disinformation, Russia wants to justify the invasion of Ukraine and discredit the Ukrainian authorities.