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

Europe Day: 40 years of ties between Spain and the European Union

Published

21 minutes ago

May 9, 2026

Press Room

Europe Day: 40 years of ties between Spain and the European Union

The Spain that knocked on Europe’s door 40 years ago was a country that had only just emerged from 40 years of dictatorship.

Spain’s democratic transition, still fragile in some respects, found in European integration an institutional anchor, a guarantee that the freedoms it had won would not be reversed.

Felipe González, who had applied for membership in 1977 as leader of the Socialist opposition and was now governing as prime minister, saw it clearly: joining Europe was not just about economics. It was a statement of political identity. Spain was rejoining the community of democratic nations from which Francoism had excluded it.

The figures for that Spain of 1986 show how far back the starting point was: per capita income was around 7,300 euros, life expectancy was 76 and the population had yet to reach 38 million.

Exports accounted for barely 4.9% of GDP and infrastructure lagged decades behind European standards. Forty years on, per capita income is above 31,000 euros, life expectancy has reached 84 and exports have climbed to 34% of GDP.

None of these transformations can be separated from EU membership.

The early years: opening up and the shock

The initial stages of integration were not easy. Spain had to face the abrupt opening of its market to European competition, which triggered tensions across whole sectors of the economy, especially in industry and agriculture.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) profoundly reshaped the Spanish countryside, forcing through painful reconversions but also opening up new markets for Mediterranean products. Olive oil, fruit, wine: Spanish agriculture found in Europe a stage for expansion that had been unthinkable until then.

At the same time, European structural funds began to flow into a country that was in desperate need of them. The motorways that now link the Peninsula, the trains that criss-cross the country, the modernised ports, the telecommunications systems: all of this was built to a large extent with financial backing from Brussels.

In four decades, Spain has received more than 185 billion euros in European funds for infrastructure, employment, innovation and regional development. Without that injection, modernisation would have taken generations longer.

An unexpected symbol of those early years was the Erasmus programme, launched by the European Community in 1987. What began as a modest university exchange initiative gradually became the defining experience of a generation.

Spain became the country that receives the most Erasmus students in all of Europe, and more than 1.6 million Spaniards have taken part in the programme over these four decades. For many young people, Erasmus was not just a semester abroad: it was the first time they truly felt European.

Maastricht and the dream of the single currency

The year 1992 marked a turning point for all of Europe, and Spain was fully aware of its significance. The signing of the Treaty on European Union in Maastricht transformed the European Economic Community into the European Union proper and opened the way to the single currency.

For Spain, Maastricht also meant taking on economic convergence commitments that required deep reforms: deficit control, keeping inflation in check, budgetary discipline. It was the price of having a seat at the top table.

In parallel, 1995 brought another of the great achievements of the European project: the entry into force of the Schengen Agreement in Spain, alongside Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal.

For the first time in modern history, citizens could cross Europe’s internal borders without showing their passport. The Schengen area was not just a convenience for tourists; it was the physical embodiment of an idea: that in Europe, people’s freedom of movement was a right, not a privilege.

And then the euro arrived. On 1 January 1999, Spain became one of the eleven founding countries of the eurozone, adopting the single currency for financial and commercial transactions.

On 1 January 2002, notes and coins reached citizens’ pockets and the peseta disappeared for good. It was a moment full of emotion and also tinged with a certain melancholy: the peseta was being abandoned, a currency with centuries of history, but something bigger was being gained, the feeling of sharing an economic destiny with hundreds of millions of Europeans.

Fittingly, it was at a summit held in Madrid in December 1995 that European leaders finally agreed on the name of the new currency: the euro.

Institutional leadership on five occasions

Over these 40 years, Spain has not limited itself to benefiting from the European project: it has also helped to build it. Since 1986, the country has held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union on five occasions, the most recent in the second half of 2023, under the motto “Europe, closer”, making it one of the member states most committed to driving the Union forward institutionally.

Three presidents of the European Parliament and nine European commissioners have been Spaniards over these four decades, a presence that reflects Spain’s growing weight in Europe’s political architecture.

Spain has also helped design some of the EU’s most important policies. It played a leading role in developing cohesion policy and in boosting the EU’s social dimension.

It was instrumental in including in the Amsterdam Treaty a sanctions mechanism for states that breached the Union’s fundamental values. And for decades it has played a distinctive role as a bridge between Europe and Ibero-America, drawing on its historical, cultural and linguistic ties with Latin America to enhance the EU’s external projection.

The great crisis and test of the euro

The years of the Great Recession brutally tested the strength of the European project and Spain’s resilience. The 2008 financial crisis triggered a devastating recession in the country: unemployment climbed above 26% in 2013, the construction sector collapsed and the financial system had to be partially bailed out with European funds.

The austerity policies imposed from Brussels fuelled deep social discontent and fed European scepticism among parts of the population that had borne the brunt of the cuts.

Even so, Spain did not abandon the euro or the European project. It opted for reform and recovery within the EU framework, and from 2014 it entered a growth cycle that was among the strongest in the eurozone. Painful as it was, the crisis also ended up showing that EU membership offered a safety net that would have been unimaginable alone.

The banking rescue coordinated by the European institutions, the financial solidarity mechanisms, access to capital markets underpinned by the European Central Bank: without Europe, the fallout could have been much more severe.

The pandemic and the NextGenerationEU funds

If the 2008 crisis was a test of endurance, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was something different: a demonstration that European solidarity could evolve into new, more ambitious forms.

For the first time in the history of European integration, the Union took on joint debt to finance the recovery of its member states. The NextGenerationEU funds made more than 140 billion euros in grants and loans available to Spain, the largest injection of European resources in the country’s history.

The pandemic was also a reminder that, when it works, European solidarity is an extraordinary asset. The coordination in vaccine purchasing, the European COVID certificate that made it possible to restore mobility, the joint response to an unprecedented threat: all this showed European citizens, Spaniards included, that the EU project was not just a market but also a community of shared destiny.

Forty years of transformation

The numbers tell a powerful story. Spanish exports of goods rose from 12.6 billion euros in 1986 to 141.5 billion in 2024. Real GDP has grown by more than 100% since accession. Life expectancy has increased by eight years over the past four decades.

The population has grown by more than 10 million people, largely thanks to immigration made possible by European prosperity. And more than 1.4 million young Spaniards have benefited from the European Youth Guarantee scheme to get into work.

The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has marked the day on his x.com account, stressing that the European Union is Spaniards’ home and future, as well as their privilege and their responsibility.

The challenges of the next 40 years

The anniversary is not only a time for celebration. It is also a moment for honest reflection on what still remains to be built. Territorial inequalities between the autonomous communities remain significant.

The green transition, population ageing, digital transformation and migration flows pose challenges that no country can face alone. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reshaped Europe’s security map and forces Spain to rethink its contribution to common defence, as we have also seen with the US–Iran conflict and threats against European bases.

The new generations, who have grown up knowing no reality other than the European one, expect the Union to respond more effectively to these challenges. For them, Europe is not a historic achievement to be defended, but a starting point to be improved. That demand, far from being a threat to the project, is perhaps its best guarantee for the future.

Forty years on from that January night in 1986, European membership is now so taken for granted that it is hard to imagine Spain outside it.

World

Peter Magyar Prepares to Take Over as Hungary’s Leader From Viktor Orban

Published

10 hours ago

May 9, 2026

Press Room

Peter Magyar Prepares to Take Over as Hungary’s Leader From Viktor Orban

Peter Magyar, the former opposition leader, prepared to be sworn in as prime minister of Hungary on Saturday, after winning an uphill election campaign to unseat Viktor Orban, whose 16 years in power made him a global icon of nationalist right-wing politics.

Mr. Magyar, a 45-year-old lawyer, has vowed to reverse the democratic backsliding and embedded corruption that ultimately turned huge numbers of voters away from Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party and handed the opposition Tisza movement a landslide victory less than a month ago.

In April, Tisza, which Mr. Magyar took over in 2024 after souring on Fidesz and breaking from it, secured an overwhelming 141 seats in the national assembly. Fidesz managed to keep control of only 52 seats, despite extensive gerrymandering, near-total control of the news media and a full-throated endorsement from President Trump and his top officials.

The scale of Mr. Magyar’s victory has left Fidesz in pell-mell retreat, and has the potential to give him a powerful hand as he faces the monumental task of dismantling what Mr. Orban called “illiberal democracy” and reviving Hungary’s anemic economy.

But Mr. Magyar will have to prove his ability to lead the country. Many in his parliamentary faction are political novices; so is most of his cabinet.

His job could be harder if Fidesz-appointed dignitaries, including the president, the chief prosecutor, and heads of various judicial, regulatory, and oversight authorities remain at their post. Mr. Magyar instructed them to resign by the end of May

Many former Fidesz loyalists are already distancing themselves from the losing party.

Mr. Magyar has also pledged to hold corrupt businessmen and politicians accountable and to recover stolen funds for the state. That could, at least temporarily, help stabilize the economy.

A key test will be if he can reclaim E.U. funding withheld from the previous government, more than $12 billion of which is set to expire in August.

Voters have faith in him, according to a new poll by Median, an independent pollster that predicted the election result accurately. Seventy-two percent of Hungarians now think Mr. Magyar is suitable to lead the country.

Endre Hann, Median’s founder and managing director, said belief in Mr. Magyar helped overturn the rule of Mr. Orban, as “society gradually came to realize that Fidesz could be defeated.”

This belief persisted after the election. According to the same poll, nearly two-thirds of Hungarians think the country is headed in the right direction, twice the level recorded in November. But the Tisza government will have to “take many concrete steps to meet the high expectations,” Mr. Hann added.

Mr. Magyar will have to tread carefully. He won by pitching himself as a conservative to win over disaffected Fidesz voters. Liberal and left-wing voters disliked many of his views on immigration and L.G.B.T.Q. issues but supported him because he offered the first viable alternative to Mr. Orban in years.

Some expectations for a real change of direction for Hungary, both within the country and abroad, may prove overblown.

Mr. Magyar pledged to maintain border security, even in the face of E.U. asylum policies, while preserving good relations with the bloc. He said he would not veto the $106 billion loan package for Ukraine, though he plans to opt out of the financing.

Progressives hope he will abide by a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice and repeal a 2021 “child protection law” that connected homosexuality with pedophilia and restricted gay rights.

But doing so would risk alienating his right-wing voters, playing into Fidesz narratives that he is a closet liberal and a puppet of the European Union.

Civil organizations, for now, simply hope that Mr. Magyar will see them as partners, said Emese Pasztor, a lawyer and project manager at Budapest-based human rights organization Tasz. She said Tisza’s election victory felt like a “breath of fresh air.”

Ms. Pasztor hoped the new administration would be more receptive to criticism and willing to engage in discussion. “If governance would be transparent, and the public had better access to information,” that alone would be a success, she added.

Budapest’s mayor, Gergely Karacsony, who was vilified by the Fidesz government, is hoping that the relationship between the capital and the state will improve.

For years, the mayor accused Mr. Orban’s government, which drew most of its support from outside the relatively liberal capital, of withholding funding and weaponizing the tax system against the city.

“We’ve lost the last six years locked in a constant financial and political battle with the government,” Mr. Karacsony said in an interview. A lot of the city’s development and investment in infrastructure, which said were in very poor condition, had been put on hold.

“We want to honor 16 years of struggle and usher in a new era in Hungary,” Mr. Karacsony said. “We want to remember the sins of the Orban government to make sure that this kind of exclusionary, hate-driven political culture never takes root again.”

World

Three hikers killed after climbing restricted Indonesian volcano to create online content, police say

Published

11 hours ago

May 9, 2026

Press Room

Three hikers killed after climbing restricted Indonesian volcano to create online content, police say

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Three people are dead and five others were injured Friday when Mount Dukono erupted on a remote Indonesian island, where the hikers were in a restricted area, authorities said.

About 20 climbers set out Thursday to climb the nearly 1,355-meter (4,445-foot) volcano in Halmahera, Indonesia, despite safety restrictions, North Halmahera police chief Erlichson Pasaribu said.

“They were aware that climbing was prohibited as the mountain is a restricted zone due to its high alert status, but insisted on going ahead,” Pasaribu said.

Despite warnings on social media and signs at the site, “many people remain determined to climb, driven by the desire to create online content,” Pasaribu said.

‘RECKLESS’ TOURISTS ON ISLAND HOT SPOT COULD BE SLAPPED WITH FINES FOR EMERGENCY SERVICES USE

In this photo released by the Badan Geologi, the geological agency of Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Mount Dukono releases volcanic materials during an eruption in North Halmahera, Indonesia, Friday, May 8, 2026. (Badan Geologi via AP)

Pasaribu said that three people, including one local resident and two Singaporeans, were killed in the eruption. The Indonesian victim was from Ternate, which is in the same province as Mount Dukono.

The three victims’ bodies remain on the volcano, with ongoing eruptions and difficult terrain preventing them from being evacuated by rescue teams, Pasaribu said.

The group became stranded when the volcano erupted at 7:41 a.m. local time, sending a column of ash over six miles into the sky.

STUNNING PHOTOS CAPTURE MOMENT ONE OF INDONESIA’S MOST ACTIVE VOLCANOES ERUPTS

Rescue teams were deployed after receiving an emergency signal from the mountain area.

Joint search and rescue (SAR) teams prepare to evacuate victims affected by the eruption of Mount Dukono in North Halmahera, Maluku Province, Indonesia, on May 08, 2026. At least three Singaporeans have been killed, while 17 others are still being searched for. (Basarnas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

As of Friday afternoon, 17 climbers had been safely evacuated, including seven Singaporean nationals and two Indonesians who joined the rescue operation and provided information on climbing routes of the victims before the eruption, National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said.

Five of those evacuated were reported injured.

MORE THAN 20 ‘ILL-PREPARED’ HYPOTHERMIC HIKERS RESCUED FROM SNOWY CONDITIONS ON NEW ENGLAND’S HIGHEST PEAK

Pasaribu said that police will question those who joined the hikers up the mountain. Fox News Digital has reached out to the Indonesian National Police for additional information.

According to the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program, Mount Dukono has been continuously erupting since 1933.

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“Friday’s eruption was among the strongest during this period,” said Lana Saria, who heads Indonesia’s Geology Agency at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.