World

Ukrainian POWs face torture, violence and execution in Russia

Published

2 years ago

October 16, 2024

Ukrainian POWs face torture, violence and execution in Russia

Nine out of 10 Ukrainian prisoners of war are subjected to physical and moral torture, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin. But many are executed before they are taken prisoners.

Physical and moral torture, sexual violence, illegal sentencing and violent execution — this is what Ukrainian prisoners of war are going through once in Russian captivity.

Ukrainian prosecutor general Andriy Kostin says up to 90% of all returned POWs stated they have been subject to torture in Russian prisons, a stark violation of the third Geneva Convention, of which Moscow is a signatory.

Yet, Russia is “determined to ignore the rules of war,” Kostin said.

The third Geneva Convention — one of four treaties in total — sets out specific rules for the treatment of prisoners of war, stating that the POWs should be treated humanely, adequately housed and provided sufficient food, clothing and medical care.

According to it, humanitarian activities, including those of the International Red Cross (ICRC) or any other impartial humanitarian organisation that may be undertaken to protect and relieve prisoners of war, should not be hindered.

And although the ICRC says it has visited almost 3,500 POWs both in Ukraine and Russia, it admits that “to date the ICRC does not have full access to all POWs”.

Ukrainian soldiers who have returned from Russian captivity and the families of those still in Russian prisons all say they have no contact and no information with those held in Russia, meaning they do not even know if the POWs are alive.

The only way to get any information about Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia was to wait for the POWs exchanges, when either a soldier would come back home or if one of those who returned had more information about those staying in Russia, they told Euronews.

Serhii Rotchuk, Azov Brigade officer, combat medic and defender of Mariupol, spent one year in Russian captivity, where he was subject to torture, abuse, and physical and mental violence.

He told Euronews that he saw his fellow servicemen in Russian captivity being in a bad state in terms of health and morale.

“Almost all of them clearly have some kind of health problems. They are held in rather difficult conditions without proper medical support,” Rotchuk said.

“If they need medication or have certain diseases, they are held in rather difficult conditions and are constantly subjected to torture, bullying, physical or moral violence.”

Waiting for POWs to come home

Yevheniia Synelnyk has not heard from her brother Artem in two years. He is one of the Mariupol defenders who have become a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance with their fierce defence of the Azovstal steel plant during three months of the full-scale invasion when the port city was under siege.

She said the last thing she heard was that her brother had been transferred to a prison in Taganrog, a city in Russia’s Rostov region, where conditions for prisoners are said to be appalling.

She learned this from other POWs who met Artem while in captivity and then shared tidbits of information with her after being exchanged and returned to Ukraine.

Yevheniia is also a representative of the Association of Azovstal Defenders’ Families, created in June 2022, shortly after about 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers surrendered to Russia on the orders of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the siege of the Azovstal steel plant in May of that year.

The association’s spokesperson, Marianna Khomeriki, told Euronews that the international organisations are not doing enough, and the families’ only hope is for Ukrainian forces to take Russian soldiers prisoners or “replenish the exchange fund by capturing occupiers”.

“We can use this fund to save the lives and health of our military who are captured by the Russians,” she explained.

Khomeriki noted that the Russian command “in general do not want to get their people back”.

Moscow is especially reluctant to exchange Mariupol defenders, and they were only exceptionally included in a recent POWs swap in exchange for the Chechen Ramzan Kadyrov’s soldiers, taken prisoners since the beginning of the Kursk incursion.

Kursk execution a sign of broader intent?

Meanwhile, Russian forces executed nine Ukrainian prisoners of war near the village of Zeleny Shlyakh in the Kursk region just last Thursday, Ukrainian open-source investigations have claimed.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War think tank analysed an image of the aftermath of the execution, saying that “it suggests that Russian forces disarmed, lined, stripped, and shot the Ukrainian POWs — a clear indication of the premeditated nature of the executions.”

The ISW says it has recently observed an increase in Moscow forces executing Ukrainian POWs throughout the theatre, adding that Russian commanding officers are likely writ large condoning, encouraging, or directly ordering them.

Rotchuk says the Russian military is not making a secret of it. “They spoke directly about it, that they had an order, as they said, to either catch or not to deal with prisoners. This is almost a direct quote from their representative of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,” he explained.

“The Russian propaganda is aimed at inciting hatred towards Ukrainians. It is a state policy to destroy everything that is not Russian. And if someone doesn’t want to, if something doesn’t want to be Russian, or someone doesn’t want to be Russian, to belong to Russia, they have to die.”

Azov Brigade, the victim of propaganda

The Azov Brigade has been specifically targeted by this narrative.

Nestor Barchuk, the brigade’s legal advisor, points out that for ten years, Azov did not receive Western weapons and training due to alleged links to far-right groups. This consequently greatly reduced the unit’s potential, he says.

In June, the US lifted the ban, saying a vetting process didn’t find any evidence of gross violations of human rights by the brigade.

“Who knows, if this ban hadn’t existed for ten years, perhaps the battle for Mariupol would have been different, and perhaps the map of the war would look different now,” Barchuk told Euronews.

This hasn’t changed Moscow’s policy over Ukrainian POWs and specifically the Mariupol defenders. Around 900 Azov soldiers remain in Russian captivity, and some 100 have been given prison sentences for what Russian prosecutors label as “participation in terrorist organisation”.

Barchuk thinks this is a clear signal that Ukraine has to fight its way to liberating its imprisoned men and women.

“The only way for Ukraine to bring back home all its defenders is to win the war,” he concluded.

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World

How Sheila the three-wheeler dodged danger on a record 14,000-mile journey to tip of South Africa

Published

7 hours ago

April 21, 2026

Press Room

How Sheila the three-wheeler dodged danger on a record 14,000-mile journey to tip of South Africa

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Englishman Ollie Jenks remembers when his friend first pitched the idea to him.

“It was so ridiculous I couldn’t say no,” Jenks said.

The proposal by Canadian buddy Seth Scott, a fellow lover of cars and crazy adventures, was for them to drive a decades-old British-made Reliant Robin car from London to the southern tip of Africa — a 14,000-mile (22,500-kilometer) journey through 22 countries — to set a record for the longest trip in a three-wheeled vehicle.

Reliant Robins have cultlike status in the U.K. as humble three-wheelers that, in Jenks’ words, were designed to go to the shops and back in 1970s Britain. They went out of production in the early 2000s but remain loved in British culture, especially after a Reliant appeared as the Trotter brothers’ trusty but battered yellow van in the hugely popular sitcom “Only Fools and Horses.”

Yet you couldn’t find a less suitable vehicle to take thousands of miles through tropical jungles, mountain ranges and deserts down the west side of Africa. And that’s precisely why Jenks went for the absurd plan.

Sheila the three-wheeler

Sheila, the silver three-wheeler — one of the last Reliant Robins to be built — was acquired specifically for the adventure. Jenks and Scott set off in October with a can of fuel and a few essential supplies strapped to Sheila’s small roof, and a large amount of blind hope that they would somehow make it to Cape Town, South Africa, near the bottom of the world.

“No power steering, no air con, and it doesn’t do well up hills or down them. It is the most unsuitable car for probably any journey,” Jenks said in an unkind assessment of Sheila’s abilities. “We made friends with the designer of this car, and he’s scared to take it any more than 20 miles.”

Jenks and Scott ignored all the advice and took Sheila on the epic journey over four-and-a-half months that cost in the region of $40,000 to $50,000, Jenks said. They had help from sponsors and crowd funding, and documented the journey on an Instagram page that pulled in nearly 100,000 followers under the title: “14,000 miles, 3 wheels, 0 common sense.”

Attempted coups and airstrikes

They arrived in Benin during an attempted coup. They skirted through northern Nigeria as the U.S. launched airstrikes on Islamic State targets. They were given a military escort for about 300 miles (480 kilometers) through a region of separatist violence in Cameroon.

“Imagine this car in a military convoy,” Jenks said.

And there were many brushes with traffic-related danger, including when an overtaking bus almost flattened Sheila against a cliff face in Congo.

True to form that Reliants are sometimes not so reliable, there were also countless breakdowns on the punishing roads.

Sheila needed her wheel springs replaced in the first two weeks. The gearbox broke in Ghana, leaving them with only fourth gear. In Cameroon, there were clutch and distributor problems and then the big one: the engine blew up.

Through all the technical problems, the kindness of strangers and the intrepidness of Jenks and Scott kept them going. One man got a new gearbox shipped to Ghana. Reliant enthusiasts in the U.K. helped find a new engine to send to Cameroon.

After one breakdown, people helped load Sheila onto a cattle truck so she could be taken to a garage. Mechanics across the continent screwed, hammered and welded Sheila to keep her together, sometimes shaking their heads at the madness of it all.

Where no Reliant Robin has gone before

But there were also majestic moments, the kind that Jenks and Scott had envisioned to make it all worth it.

Sheila cruised through stunning mountain ranges and vast deserts — where surely no Reliant Robin has gone before. She went on safari, driving alongside galloping giraffes, spotting endangered rhinos, and posing for a picture next to a giant elephant.

More than 120 days after setting off, she rattled into Cape Town last month on an engine that began badly overheating in the Namibian desert and had been touch and go for about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers).

“This is a great underdog story,” said Graeme Hurst, a South African car lover who followed them on Instagram and came to see Sheila. “I see the farcical kind of comical nature of it … but also the sheer admiration. I mean, they have utter tenacity.”

In South Africa, Sheila was put on temporary display in a showroom for high-end cars and was the center of attention ahead of the glittering Porsches and Mercedes, showing off her broken side window, her petrol-stained windshield, her bent tire rims, and her countless dents and scratches.

She will rest now and be given the thorough service she deserves, Jenks said. Eventually, she’ll be driven to Kenya, put on a ship to Turkey, then make one last trip back to the U.K. to find a home at the London Transport Museum.

Jenks said he felt triumphant after reaching Cape Town, but relieved to have survived and finally be out of the tiny two-seater.

“It was like driving a motorized coffin,” he said.

___

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

World

Pope Leo urges Africans to stay and ‘serve your country’ instead of migrating as displacement climbs

Published

9 hours ago

April 21, 2026

Press Room

Pope Leo urges Africans to stay and ‘serve your country’ instead of migrating as displacement climbs

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Pope Leo XIV last Friday urged African youth to work toward improving their own countries rather than migrating elsewhere in search of better opportunities.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church directed his remarks to university students at the Catholic University of Central Africa in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, during an 11-day apostolic journey in Africa.

“In the face of the understandable tendency to migrate — which may lead one to believe that elsewhere a better future may be more easily found — I invite you, first and foremost, to respond with an ardent desire to serve your country and to apply the knowledge you are acquiring here to the benefit of your fellow citizens,” Leo said.

While displacement in Africa has steadily increased in recent years amid economic and political challenges, Leo said each country’s rising generations should be “committed to society,” reflect their nations’ needs and confront systemic issues at home.

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Pope Leo XIV speaks as he meets with the community of Bamenda at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral in Bamenda on the fourth day of an 11-day apostolic journey to Africa April 16, 2026. (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images)

“Africa, indeed, must be freed from the scourge of corruption. For young people, this awareness must take root from their years of formation,” he said.

“These are the witnesses of wisdom and justice, of which the African continent needs.”

He added that through education and spiritual formation, “you learn to become builders of the future of your respective countries and of a world that is more just and humane.”

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Pope Leo XIV delivers a speech during his visit to Central African Catholic University as part of his Africa tour April 17, 2026, in Yaoundé, Cameroon. (Ahmet Emin Donmez/Anadolu)

According to the World Migration Report, most of Africa’s displacement occurs internally within the continent, with 21 million Africans recorded as living in another African country in 2020.

Overseas African migration has also steadily increased, with figures more than doubling between 1990 and 2020.

In 2020, roughly 11 million Africans reportedly migrated to Europe, 5 million to Asia and 3 million to Northern America.

MORNING GLORY: LEO’S LAUNCH

Pope Leo XIV visits Central African Catholic University as part of his Africa tour April 17, 2026, in Yaoundé, Cameroon. (Ahmet Emin Donmez/Anadolu)

The causes of displacement are largely attributed to political conflict, corruption, violence and economic hardship, including widespread poverty.

These factors are particularly pronounced in countries such as Somalia, one of Africa’s largest sources of refugees; Nigeria, which is riddled with natural disasters and economic pressures; and Sudan’s surrounding areas, where civil war, political instability and food insecurity have driven large-scale displacement.

The Pope’s remarks come just days after President Donald Trump criticized Leo on Truth Social, calling him “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy.”

The backlash followed the pontiff’s criticism of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and his appeal for a return to peace.

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Tensions between the two boiled over several days before the Pope said last Saturday that it was “not in my interest at all” to debate the president.

Leo has insisted that his position is focused on bridging divides among nations and promoting peace and reconciliation.

Bonny Chu is a Digital Production Assistant at Fox News Digital.