In a hopeful sign, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its team in Mariupol hasregistered hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war who have left the Azovstal plant since Tuesday.
The registration process involves the individual filling out a form with personal details like name, date of birth, and closest relative. This information allows the ICRC to track those who have been captured and help them keep in touch with their families.
Under the Geneva Conventions, the ICRC must be granted immediate access to all POWs in all places where they are being held and be allowed to interview them without witnesses.
On Friday, a RIA Novosti reporter wrote that representatives of the ICRC on Wednesday visited Ukrainian prisoners at hospitals treating the wounded and at a penal colony near Olenivka, another town in Donetsk province held by the Russian-backed separatists. (Here is a link to the RIA Novosti story, which should mostly be viewed as Russian-slanted propaganda, particularly aimed at discrediting the Azov Regiment).
The reporter said the Russian and Donetsk troops guarding the prisoners “strictly observe” the Geneva Conventions on the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
About 800 POWs from Azovstal are being held in the camp in Olenivka, which is surrounded by a 20-foot tall concrete wall, topped by barbed wire, and guard towers with searchlights, RIA Novosti reported. It said female POWS were being held in prison cells separate from the male prisoners.
The RIA Novosti story includes photographs of Red Cross representatives visiting the camp and quotes and photographs of male and female prisoners intended to leave the impression that they are not being mistreated.
Russian media has also published unofficial reports that some captured soldiers from the Azov Regiment had been taken across the border to Russia and are being held in prisons in the Rostov region, according to Meduza, the independent Russian news website now based in Latvia.
Meduza said one Russian news outlet, citing an unnamed law enforcement source, said 89 Azov Regiment soldiers had been sent to the town of Taganrog and would be “distributed further” from there.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not say whether the Ukrainian troops would be treated as prisoners of war or war criminals. Peskov only said that President Vladimir Putin had guaranteed that Ukrainian fighters who surrendered at Azovstal would be treated "in accordance with international standards,” Reuters reported.
Russian lawmakers have gone further by suggesting that a resolution be passed barring the exchange of any Azov prisoners. The State Duma, or lower house of parliament, had planned to take up a resolution on Wednesday prohibiting the exchange of any “Nazi criminals,” but failed to do so.
On Tuesday in a Telegram post, the Investigation Committee of the Russian Federation, the Kremlin’s version of the FBI, announced plans to interrogate the Ukrainian prisoners to determine whether any had been involved in crimes against civilians.
The Russian Attorney General’s Office has also asked the Supreme Court to recognize “Azov” as a terrorist organization, the state-run Interfax news agency reported.
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar urged Ukrainians to disregard Russian claims about Azovstal’s defenders as “political statements made for their propaganda effect and to achieve the propaganda goal for domestic Russian consumption.”
“I understand that everyone wants to know at least some information, but the rescue operation is still underway. That’s first and foremost. Secondly, negotiations are underway, because the rescue operation itself has several difficult stages,” Malyar assured. “This process is very sensitive. Any information we make public can be detrimental to both the process and our defenders.”
The Azov Regiment was formed in 2014 as an extreme right-wing volunteer militia to fight Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region. Azov fighters recaptured Mariupol in 2014 and made the city its headquarters, repelling repeated attacks by pro-Russian separatists in the eight-year war in Donbas preceding the Feb. 24 Russian invasion.
Critics say Azov initially championed white nationalist, anti-immigrant, and other extreme-right ideas, but Ukrainian officials say Azov was later folded into Ukraine's National Guard, that it has abandoned its ultra-nationalist origins, and that it has nothing to do with neo-Nazism.
But Azov has been used by Russian propagandists to justify the war, using it as an example of why Ukraine needed to be “de-Nazified” and demilitarized.
Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Moscow Center said that ultimately it does not matter what Russian politicians say about how to treat the Ukrainian POWs, according to The Guardian.
“Ultimately, their statements don’t matter much and it will be Putin who decides what happens to the Ukrainian soldiers,” Kolesnikov said. He said what Putin chose to do with the Azovstal soldiers could point to his current intentions in the conflict. “If he decides to try the soldiers, it will be a clear, worrying sign that he is willing to further escalate the situation. It will be a spit in Zelenskiyy’s face.”
Alternatively, Kolesnikov said, trading soldiers with Ukraine would be framed domestically as a Russian “act of mercy and compassion” despite the current calls by Putin’s hardliners demanding severe punishment for the soldiers. “At home, Putin has flexibility and could play both cards,” Kolesnikov said.
While Ukrainians worry about the fate of the Azovstal defenders, Ukraine has been holding the first war crimes trial arising from the Russian invasion.
A 21-year-old Russian tank commander pleaded guilty on Wednesday to killing Oleksandr Shelipov, an unarmed 62-year-old civilian, in the northeastern Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka on Feb. 28, Ukrainskaya Pravda reported.
The Russian soldier, Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin, was in a convoy that was attacked by Ukrainian forces. He tried to escape to Russian lines in a stolen car with four other men when they saw Shelipov talking on his phone. The Russians decided that the local man was reporting their position to Ukrainian troops, and Shishimarin said he was ordered to shoot Shelipov.
On Thursday, Ukrainian prosecutors asked the judge to sentence the Russian soldier to life in prison. The judge may hand down a verdict on Monday when the court next convene, Reuters reported.
Shishimarin apologized to Shelipov’s widow and asked her to forgive him.
And then the widow, Kateryna Shelipova, told the court that said she would not object if Shishimarin was released to Russia as part of a prisoner swap to get “our boys” out of the port city of Mariupol, a reference to the Ukrainian soldiers who are now Russian prisoners, The Guardian reported.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has said her office has registered more than 10,000 crimes committed by Russian soldiers since the war began. Several more Russian POWs are expected to go on trial soon for murdering or targeting civilians.
It’s also unclear just how many POWs Ukraine is currently holding. While the Ukrainian defense ministry has been daily updating Russian losses of troops and military equipment, the number of prisoners has held at 1,000 for several months.
And Mariupol may be the epicenter of war crimes. In the worst atrocity, Russian forces on March 16 bombed Mariupol’s Drama Theater sheltering hundreds of women and children. An Associated Press investigation has found evidence that close to 600 people were killed in the attack.
On Friday, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol said that Russian forces had completed clearing away the rubble and had removed the bodies of the dead from the city's Drama Theater, reopening the area, Ukrainskaya Pravda reported.
The adviser, Petro Andriushchenko, said on Telegram:
“Now we will never know how many civilians from Mariupol were actually killed by a Russian bomb at the Drama Theater. The victims were buried under unnamed markers in a mass grave in Manhush."
Satellite images have revealed Russian forces dumped thousands of bodies in mass graves in the town of Manhush near Mariupol.
(Updates throughout with new details.)