At least 1,019 Ukrainian prisoners of war are facing criminal prosecution in Russia, according to estimates by Memorial's Political Prisoners Support project. The rights group provided the figure in an interview with journalist Maria Kugel, published on November 4. The group cautioned that its records were incomplete. The figure refers to people facing prosecution, not the number of final convictions.
Project director Sergei Davidis said 830 of the cases known to the organization involved terrorism charges. A separate category comprises 414 people accused in connection with service in certain Ukrainian military formations. Of those, 329 also face charges of training for terrorist activities. These categories overlap and must not be added together.
Davidis said many cases alleging membership in a terrorist organization stem from service in Ukraine’s Azov and Aidar formations, which Russia has designated as terrorist groups. According to the rights advocate, investigators in such cases treat ordinary military training as training for terrorist activity. He argued that prosecuting prisoners of war solely for belonging to a military unit violates protections under the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war.
Davidis said more than 400 Ukrainian service members captured in the Kursk region had also been charged. In the interview, he linked those cases to the treatment of participation in hostilities as a terrorist act. He also cited 15 foreign nationals known to the group who face mercenary charges. These figures describe different subsets of the cases examined, not additional groups to be added to the overall estimate.
Other people interviewed by journalist Maria Kugel described conditions in which Ukrainian prisoners of war are held. Rights advocate Mikhail Savva said they are often confined in cells in pretrial detention centers and penal colonies rather than held under the conditions applicable to prisoners of war. Interviewees also described obstacles to informing relatives and providing access to lawyers and humanitarian organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross.