by O. Del Fabbro
Bürgenstock, near lake Lucerne, June 15-16, 2024. Switzerland has organized a peace summit to address the war in Ukraine. Many countries participate, but the aggressor, Russia, was not invited. The main topics of discussion that Switzerland and Ukraine have listed are nuclear and food safety, as well as humanitarian aspects. In regard to the latter, still today, thousands of Ukrainian Prisoners of War (POWs) and civilians are imprisoned in modern Russian concentration camps, thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and brought to Russian territory. Russia is violating the Geneva Conventions in many ways.
In the shadow of the summit and the high profile visitors from around the world, a group of mostly women has traveled from Ukraine to Lucerne to raise awareness to their issue: the unlawful and unrightful conviction of members of the Azov Brigade, the defenders of Mariupol in the steel plant, Azovstal. These women form one body and together they defend their cause: to bring their loved ones back home. “We are here to tell the whole world what Russia is doing with Ukraine, our husbands and sons,” Anna says.[1]
Anna is the fiancé of a 26 year old POW, Bohdan. For more than 80 days, without any supplies or medical help, Bohdan helped defend Azovstal, until his unit was ordered to surrender to the Russians in May 2022. Ever since, Anna has not heard from Bohdan. In Russia, Ukrainian POWs are deprived of communication with the outside world – a violation of the Geneva Conventions. The only way to get information about their fiancés, husbands, and sons is to scroll endlessly through official Russian Telegram channels. That’s how Anna found out that her husband has been sentenced two times: in November 2023, he was sentenced to 24 years for the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and in March 2024, he was sentenced to 28 years for murdering a civilian. These sentences are a violation of the Geneva Conventions, because Bohdan is a POW, and cannot be put on trial as a civilian. Moreover, Bohdan’s health is deteriorating. While defending Azovstal, his left hand was injured, and ever since being captured, he has not received medical help – yet another violation of the Geneva Conventions. All this is brought to Anna’s attention, because one of Bohdan’s friends was freed in a prisoner exchange in May 2023. The friend told Anna that Bohdan’s hand is still ulcerating and completely dysfunctional. “That’s why it is important to not just talk about POWs in general, but also the unjustly convicted of the Azov Brigade”, Anna concludes.
Another violation of the Geneva Conventions is torture. Olena is the wife of 28 year old Danylo. In July 2024, they were married three years, but they only had a year and half of actual family life. Ever since, Danylo has spent more than two years in captivity. The last time she saw him was three days before the war began. The last time she was in contact with him, was two days before he left Azovstal in May 2022. “He said: everything will be alright, don’t be afraid, you will not hear from me for 3-4 months, because I will be in war captivity.” But Olena never heard from him again. In August 2022 a freed POW told her that Danylo is so haggard that he is barely recognizable. Prisoners are deprived of food, beaten, electroshocked in interrogation and so on. “The ICRC is not allowed to check on them, that’s why we came to Switzerland to shout it out to the world. My hope is that the prisoners can come home, and that I can hug him and lead a normal family life,” Olena says in tears.
Similarly to Olena, Maria saw in a video how her 30 year old son, Andriy, is nothing but skin and bones. “It was very difficult to watch.” She has recorded the video, but only watched it once. The video shows a Russian journalist, interviewing Andriy, who stands half-naked in front of the camera, while he is asked about his Nazi and fascist tattoos – yet another violation of the Geneva Conventions, for, it is prohibited to turn POWs into subjects of public curiosity. The fate of Maria’s son raises the controversial topic of the nationalist and far-right background of the Azov Brigade. For the Russians it is easy prey, because it fits their narrative of denazification of Ukraine – an absurdity given the fact that Russia has become more and more authoritarian and fascist itself under Putin’s grand narrative of Eurasianism, a development, Timothy Snyder has named schizo-fascism: A fascist branding others as fascists.[2]
It is not only the evident torture and humiliation that makes such videos so shocking to watch, but also the fact that some Azov soldiers indeed have Nazi tattoos. At the beginning of its history, some of the volunteers of the Azov Brigade showcased typical behavior of fascist militias, that is, trying to influence politics by force and violence with the accompanying fascist symbolisms. But ever since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the nationalistic Azov Brigade has been integrated into common Ukrainian patriotism – last but not least, also because the Brigade has been part of the Ukrainian National Guard since 2014. Recently, the political scientist Joshua Holzer articulated the difference between nationalism and patriotism: nationalism is a person’s affinity for those who share the same history, culture, language, or religion. Nationalism is exclusive, it boosts one identity group in favor of others.[3] Contrarily, patriotism is the devotion to one’s fatherland, one’s country of origin. It encompasses the devotion to the country as a whole, including all the people who live within it. Although nobody can know about the mentality of each and every person of this Brigade, Azov has become, through the Russian aggression, part of the patriotic movement in Ukraine. Today, Azov is one of the many places for those who want to defend their home. In Ukraine, it has become a public symbol of resistance to the Russian aggression, heroes, who were ordered to surrender in Mariupol.
When Andriy was sentenced for a second time – just like Anna’s fiancé, Bohdan – he shared the courtroom with Sofia’s 24 year old son, Yura. “This year is his third birthday in confinement”, Sofia tells me. She last saw her son on December 6, 2021. In March 2022, came the last text message. Two years later, in March 2024, she saw him in a courtroom in Donetsk, but where her son was taken after the courtroom appearance remains unknown.
As already mentioned, Sofia, Olena, Anna, and all the others get their information from a Telegram channel called Sledkom (Следком). In Russian, the name refers to the Investigative Committee of Russia. “I read that channel every day,” says Diana, whose husband has been sentenced to 25 years for the murder of a civilian. Sledkom is Russia’s anti-corruption agency. It answers directly to the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, and inspects police forces, combats police corruption and misconduct, and also investigates local authorities and federal governmental bodies. In other words, no one is safe from Sledkom’s investigations, as Russian expert Mark Galeotti wrote in 2010: judges, prosecutors, parliamentarians, even Siloviki from the military and apparently the FSB – Russia’s Federal Security Service, the former KGB.[4] Thousands of investigators and prosecutors thus have the decision power to open up criminal cases. They are the Kremlin’s law-enforcement, Putin’s watchdog, a power vertical in the Russian system. Sledkom’s director, Alexander Bastrykin, is an old friend of Putin’s, a former classmate from Leningrad State University. The initial idea of Sledkom was to break the tight connections between circles of criminals, businesspeople, and politicians in the provinces of Russia. Law-enforcement was supposed to be brought more into the grips of the president.
In August 2022, the Russian Supreme Court designated the Azov Brigade as a terrorist organization, allowing them to open up criminal cases, for example of terrorism, against Azov Brigade members, and thus not treating them as POWs. It is precisely these mass convictions of Azov Brigade prisoners that are happening now, and that Sofia, Olena, Anna and Diana are witnessing, while doomscrolling on Sledkom’s Telegram channel.
After having surrendered, most of the Azov Brigade POWs were brought to a prisoner camp next to the city of Olenivka, in Donetsk region. On July 29, 2022, a mysterious explosion in the penal colony killed over 50 prisoners and left more than a hundred injured. Russia never allowed the ICRC to go onsite and check what happened. A report from the United Nations from March 2023 suggests Russian culpability. The UN also rejects Russia’s claim that the cause of the explosion was an Ukrainian HIMARS rocket. Investigations by the Kyiv Independent have shown that many causalities have not obtained medical help, and that Azov Brigade POWs were deliberately gathered on the site where the explosion happened.[5]
Nataliya’s son, 28 year old Alexander, was injured by the explosion at Olenivka. He had burnt legs and splitters in his hands. Alexander’s wife was also in Olenivka, even though she is a civilian. Nataliya knows that Alexander has survived, because in November 2023, she saw on Sledkom’s Telegram channel, how her son got sentenced to 25 years of camp imprisonment for murder, but nobody knows where he is right now.
Nataliya’s husband, Georgiy, highlights that Russia is a terror organization itself, but by making the Azov Brigade a terror organization, they can charge others of their own crimes. For example, the complete destruction of Mariupol through bombardment. Schizo-Terrorism. “Russia accuses our sons and husbands with the crimes they have committed themselves. They killed civilians by the numbers.” Georgiy and Nataliya stayed in Mariupol until Mid-March 2022, they know firsthand what happened in the city. The Oscar-winning movie 20 Days In Mariupol documents the total destruction of the city and the killing of civilians, including children. A documentary by Arte shows how Putin’s bombardment by air, sea, and land first tested and used in Syria has continued in Ukraine.[6] Today’s Mariupol is yesterday’s Homs and Aleppo.
“We had no electricity, no gas, no water, no food, no medicine, no heating, no communication. The stores were closed, ambulances could not be called, people died of their injuries in the streets, no windows in hospitals, doctors have worked beyond their capacity without a break”, Nataliya explains. On March 2, 2022, their building was hit by a grenade. They survived because they hid in the basement. “We had no information whatsoever of the outside world.” Information became accessible during the first cease-fire, when they could leave the basement and get radio reception. Aid convoys were not let into the city. “We had only our own provisions to eat once a day. We were looking for firewood and water to cook. Many civilians died during that search. Many civilians tried to leave the city but were sent to camps and put in war captivity. That’s why so many civilians are imprisoned in Russia. These are all war crimes.”
Uncertainties and personal loss make it difficult to maintain hope. Alina’s 24 year old son, Mykola, has been sentenced to 22 years for terrorism. “I follow every trace, every hope, I do everything in order to be heard. We came to Switzerland in the hope that someone dares to put pressure on Russia, to release the prisoners and to create public awareness.” But the result stays the same, nobody comes home. “Since three years nothing has changed. We are active, but nobody is listening.” Then, Sofia adds: “Since May 2023, not one single Azov Brigade soldier has been set free.” They are convinced that Russia is not freeing them, because they are the most motivated soldiers. Once freed, they would return to the frontline and fight, Sofia and Georgiy say.
If hope is difficult to maintain individually, collectively it is possible. During the intense fighting in Mariupol, when Kateryna had trouble finding out where her 25 year old son Anatoly was, she started to look for others who also have relatives in the Azov Brigade. It was Sofia who told Kateryna that Anatoly was still alive. Today, they all share a private Telegram channel for information exchange: who was seen where, when, and in what condition. Complete self-organization. On April 23, 2022, Kateryna spoke for the last time to her son. A little later, she saw a Russian video in which Anatoly is seen handing over his weapon in front of Azovstal. Then, he was put on a truck. “He was very thin, with a long beard and hair, but he seemed in good health.” On January 2, 2023, a freed POW called Kateryna to tell her that he was imprisoned with her son in Taganrog. Since then, she has no news. “We are making campaigns to raise the attention to POWs. It started in April 2022 in Kyiv. Nobody in the world knows what is happening in Ukraine. Since last year, we are also travelling abroad to Poland and now Switzerland. It is also an information war with Russia.”
The peace summit at lake Lucerne is something they want to believe in, not by true conviction, but more because it is yet another option to get their loved ones back home. Obviously, their hate for the Russians is enormous. But they do not think that Ukraine should treat Russian POWs in the same manner as Russia is treating the Ukrainians. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth? “No, Ukrainians should respect the Geneva Conventions. Nobody has the right to behave like Russia does”, says Kateryna.
The situation seems helpless, but the fight continues. “We advocate for our relatives just like they have fought for our freedom and Ukraine as a country,” Kateryna continues. Sofia adds: “My husband went to war after our son has been imprisoned, and my brother is fighting too. My nephew died a couple of months ago near Kupyansk. These women, who are waiting and fighting for their sons and husbands to come home are all I have left.” Anna says: “We share the same experience, fate has brought us together, that’s why we support each other.” And if all that does not help, then there is still fate, love, hope, and God. Kateryna concludes: “Only by making the public aware of the fate of our relatives can we bring them back. Initially, we thought that imprisonment meant survival, but even this has to be questioned now. The unjustly convicted cannot be forgotten.”
[1] Names in this article have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.
[2] Timothy Snyder. 2018. The Road to Unfreedom, Russia, Europe, America, Crown, New York.
[3] Joshua Holzer. June 28, 2023. What is the Difference between Nationalism and Patriotism?. Retrieved on July 5, 2024: https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-difference-between-nationalism-and-patriotism-208170.
[4] Mark Galeotti. October 5, 2010. The Investigations Committee – not so much Russia’s FBI, more a Kremlin Watchdog. Retrieved on July 5, 2024: https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/the-investigations-committee-not-so-much-russias-fbi-more-a-kremlin-watchdog/.
[5] Yevheniia Motorevska, Vitalii Havura. December 7, 2023. Inside a Prison where Russia Tortured Ukrainian POWs. Investigation by the Kyiv Independent. Retrieved on July 5, 2024: https://kyivindependent.com/inside-a-prison-where-russia-tortured-ukrainian-pows-investigation-by-the-kyiv-independent/.
[6] Edith Bouvier. 2022. Syrien, Russlands Testlabor?. Retrieved on July 5, 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJArCT2N72w.