Russia is offering Ukrainian POWs to ‘switch sides and occupy Europe together'

Euronews

23-05-2025

By
Published on •Updated
Ukraine has submitted a list of POWs to Russia for a 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner swap. Many Ukrainian soldiers have now spent over three years in Russian captivity, where they are often being tortured, abused and offered to "join Russian forces to then occupy Europe."
When Ukraine and Russia agreed last week to exchange their prisoners of war in a 1,000-for-1,000 swap, for tens of thousands of Ukrainians, this was a glimpse of hope.
In most cases, families and friends of Ukrainian POWs do not know where their loved ones are being kept, where and if they are being moved, what conditions they are being held in or even whether they are alive.
All they can do is come to the POW's exchanges with photos of the missing or captured Ukrainian soldiers, hoping that some of those who got exchanged could recognize the faces of the missing and give at least some information to the family, if they were held in the same prison or sometimes even the same sell.
The photos often have a writing with a name, a brigade, and sometimes a date of disappearance, when the families know the date.
On 6 May, a Ukrainian mother attended the swap. She held a flag with the photo of her son, hoping for news about him, when one of the released defenders recognised him, telling her that he was in the same cell with the missing soldier and he was alive and "holding up well".
Nine out of 10 Ukrainian defenders are being subjected to torture in Russian prisons, going through physical and moral torture, sexual violence, illegal sentencing and violent execution.
Volodymyr Labuzov, chief medical officer of the 36th Marine Brigade, was one of them. He was stationed in Mariupol when Russia started its full-scale invasion in early 2022.
His unit was defending the besieged city for weeks until some of them, including Labuzov, were captured by Russian forces in April 2022.
Labuzov told Euronews that together with the Ukrainian soldiers, Russia is holding captive thousands of Ukrainian civilians, including children, "who have nothing to do with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and they should be returned without any conditions, without any agreements."
Labuzov said they should be released without preconditions. In addition to the POW exchange, a thousand for a thousand is good, but it is only good if it is exclusively military.
'Russia doesn't make any difference between the soldiers and civilians in their captivity', Labuzov explained, adding that most of the civilians held in prisons were taken there from "the territories that Russia allegedly liberated and allegedly brought them happiness and freedom. But the treatment is the same for both civilians and military personnel."
It is not clear how many Ukrainian civilians are being held in Russian prisons and how many more are remaining under Russian occupation, with similar treatment.
"They are now forced into such conditions that if you want just to live or to even walk the streets of your villages, you must take Russian citizenship. Without Russian citizenship - you are a nobody, you have no rights," Labuzov said.
'If this is not a genocide of the Ukrainian nation, then how can we interpret these conditions that Russia is imposing on the Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories? This is one of the greatest displays of genocide of the Ukrainian nation by its northern neighbour.'
If the civilians do not accept the conditions or "God forbid, put up any resistance to the Russian troops," the territories are simply wiped off the face of the earth, Labuzov said.
'This is what happened in Mariupol and I personally witnessed the destruction of this city. I witnessed the destruction of civilians, I witnessed the destruction of urban infrastructure.'
Russian forces then did the same to Avdiivka, Bakhmut and Soledar, according to Labuzov: "There's just nothing left. There are ruins."
In numerous interviews, Ukrainian prisoners of war said they were told repeatedly that Ukraine didn't exist anymore, that their country had forgotten about them. Labuzov added that they are also offered to switch sides and join Russian forces to then "together occupy Europe."
'During one of the interrogations, these torturers offered me cooperation. They told me the one goal they had was to 'come join us and we go on to occupy Europe together," he recalled.
Labuzov told Euronews almost all Ukrainian POWs receive this offer: "These torturers say, 'Come to us, we will liberate Ukraine, we will go on to capture Europe'."