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Comment of the MFA on the OSCE experts' report on Russian crimes against Ukrainian POWs

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine

26 September 2025 11:24

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine welcomes the publication by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) of the «Report on Possible Violations and Abuses of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, Related to the Treatment of Ukrainian POWs by the Russian Federation».

The report prepared by the independent mission of experts of the OSCE Moscow Mechanism is a comprehensive international document dedicated to the issue of systematic crimes committed by the aggressor state against Ukrainian POWs.

The refusal of the Russian Federation to cooperate with the OSCE independent expert mission is another evidence of its responsibility for these crimes.

In the report, the mission established that the Russian Federation's treatment of Ukrainian POWs is following:

• is widespread and systematic in nature, accompanied by consistent and deliberate actions directed against the defenders of Ukraine;

• may constitute the war crime of "ill-treatment of prisoners of war" and the crime against humanity of "imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law."

The Mission also documented numerous gross violations of international humanitarian law and human rights:

• massive and systematic use of torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, including sexual violence;
• arbitrary killings and executions of Ukrainian POWs, including upon the surrender;
• deliberate denial of adequate food, medical care, and basic conditions of detention, resulting in deaths in detention facilities;
• use of POWs for propaganda,  physical and psychological coercion to cooperate, and so-called "trials" in violation of the Geneva Convention III (GCIII).

The findings of the Report could be used within the framework of national and international mechanisms for bringing war criminals of the aggressor state to justice.

Ukraine urges the international community to actively disseminate and use the Mission's findings, as well as to further consolidate efforts to end the Russian Federation's criminal practices against Ukrainian POWs and to secure their exchange on all-for-all principle.

All those who ordered, organized, and carried out war crimes and crimes against humanity must be held accountable.

Ukraine also calls on the international community to increase sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation in order to ensure justice.