Thread by @EmmanuelleChaze

🧵 Do you want to hear about feelings of Russian soldiers? I will tell you about those I recently met, who are prisoners of war in a Ukrainian detention center & whom Ukraine hopes to exchange as quickly as possible for its own POWs detained in appalling conditions in Russia.

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I've talked to 10 POWs, one to one, who freely consented to speak to me, respecting their anonymity, & for the first time since witnessing their crimes and illegal presence in Ukraine.

I know & studied International Law: it's respected in this detention centre.

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First of, all of the people I talked to looked well, health wise. They all confirmed being well treated.

An entire medical ward funded & renovated by the ICRC is there for the sick ones. Dentist, X-ray, ultrasounds, psychologist...Better care than they would get at home.

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Russian POWs receive letters & parcels from their families, can work in workshops to make some pocket money & buy extra food, cigarettes etc. All get 3 meals a day, their dormitories are decent, clean, luminous.
They have books from the library, pens and papers from the ICRC.

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With those current conditions in mind, I have asked all of them why & how they joined. Some have joined on February 24th, 2022, some are conscripts, many had prison tattoos, meaning they are former convicts. There were also foreign mercenaries.

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This man was the last I talked to that day & like I did with the others, I asked him about war crimes in Bucha, Izium...He is the only one who didn't say he had no idea.

Instead, he said that he had seen videos..and that it looked staged. I told him what I saw in Izyum.

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Others convicts said they didn't know about crimes against civilians, most that they were told & believed they had to "free people from Donetsk & Luhansk".

Some seem to genuinely believe it. Others, especially the youngest, seem to only regret having been caught.

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I asked them all how they thought Ukrainian POWs were being treated.

Some did say they believed Ukrainians were equally well treated. Even the former convicts, who know well about the state of prisons in Russia.

They looked me in the eye saying it.

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Overall, I felt they were sorry to have been caught. Embarrassed to be there and even more embarrassed to be well treated. Most say they had been surprised to be treated humanly and to have rights.

I didn't see from them empathy to Ukrainians, be they civilians or soldiers.

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I forgot an important point, some POWs asked why Ukraine didn't exchange those injured among them & didn't exchange POWs more often.

They seem to have no idea that Russia is stalling negotiations for all exchanges, incl all for all, & that it doesn't care for its sick.

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It was surreal in many ways. Those who accepted to talk (many refused), also did so because they had questions for us, on exchanges. Others because they hope it can help their release...

It felt that our values, our way of life, were as foreign to them as theirs to us.

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