New York Times rapporterar att Kiev fuskar när det gäller utväxlingen av krigsfångar. Medan separatisterna friger stora antal soldater, släpper Kiev långt färre fångar och skickar dessutom på separatisterna civila som fängslats för att ha demonstrerat mot regeringen - det vill säga personer som inte är krigsfångar överhuvudtaget:
Citat:
In the swap on Saturday, the separatists released 139 Ukrainian soldiers in exchange for 52 prisoners released by the central government. It appeared a generous exchange on the part of the separatists by the standards of prisoner releases, where officers, the wounded and high-profile detainees are generally highly valued and not swapped en masse.
This time, among those released was a Ukrainian soldier wounded in the chaotic and bloody retreat from Debaltseve who survived for three days lying in a field before being captured. The rebels also released soldiers captured in a January battle for the Donetsk airport, a group viewed as heroes in Ukraine and nicknamed the cyborgs.
“They just freed 139 Ukrainian soldiers!” President Petro O. Poroshenko wrote in a post on Facebook. “Among them are soldiers captured near Debaltseve, and also ‘cyborgs’ from Donetsk Airport. I demand the release of all detainees. I did and will do all I can for this.”
It’s unclear how many prisoners each side holds, though certainly many hundreds remain in detention. The separatists have said they hold more than a thousand Ukrainians while asserting that the authorities in Kiev hold more than 580 rebels.
The Ukrainian Army, outgunned and losing ground, has had a chronic shortage of prisoners of war to trade, and has resorted to releasing civilians who have been detained as pro-Russian activists in street demonstrations in different parts of Ukraine. The swap on Saturday seemed to be no exception. In a statement, the Donetsk People’s Republic said civilians were among the 52 released.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/world/europe/kerry-says-further-sanctions-on-russia-will-be-discussed-over-ukraine.html?_r=0
Det är inte första gången Kiev gör så här. I september rapporterade New York Times att regimen i Kiev skickade bl.a. kvinnor och tonåringar som fängslats på oklara grunder i utbyte mot riktiga krigsfångar:
Citat:
The pro-Russian separatists — who with the aid of the Russian Army routed the Ukrainians in battles in August, taking many captives — released men appearing to be actual prisoners of war.
The Ukrainians, however, widely understood to be lacking enough prisoners of their own to effect a one-for-one exchange, set free a motley group of men, women and teenagers wearing tracksuits or dirty jeans, and taken, they said, from jails as far away as Kiev.
Soon enough, many of them were objecting to anybody who would listen there on the highway that they had never fought for pro-Russian separatists, and in fact had no idea how they ended up in a prisoner exchange in eastern Ukraine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/world/europe/ukraine-prisoner-swaps-russian-separatists.html?_r=0
Ukrainarna bröt också av pekfingret på en krigsfånge de misstänkte var prickskytt innan de släppte honom:
Citat:
One man released by the Ukrainian Army, Oleg Furman, 43, said he was a soldier for the Luhansk People’s Republic, one of the rebel groups here. The Ukrainians suspected he was a sniper, he said, and so broke his trigger finger, which was still cocooned in gauze bandages.
Och en affärsman från Kiev fängslades på godtyckliga grunder för att sedan dumpas över till separatisterna som "krigsfånge":
Citat:
More typical of those released over the weekend was Valery Ginsberg, a businessman from Kiev, who was let loose on the highway in a swap on Saturday.
In an interview, he said he had never been to Donetsk. In Kiev, he was indeed known as a supporter of closer economic ties with Russia. He had been arrested on a pretext, he said.
“They traded us like cattle,” he said. “I’m a citizen of Ukraine. How can they do this? I would have proved my innocence. I wanted to prove my innocence. But they never asked me.”
