Russia’s Mariupol Show Trials The Kremlin subjects prisoners of war to torture and sham trials.
Ukrainian prisoners of war already face deprivation and torture, and Russia now plans to subject them to a show trial that violates the laws of war and international agreements that Russia has signed.
In May some 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers under siege in Mariupol surrendered to save the lives of severely wounded comrades. Last week Denis Pushilin, the Russia-backed head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said a tribunal in Mariupol would hear some 80 cases of war crimes.
The trials will focus on captured members of the Azov Regiment of Ukraine’s national guard. Formed in 2014, the unit was accused of including anti-Semites. The regiment says it has since dishonorably discharged extremists in its ranks, and its members now include Jewish soldiers. The unit fought alongside Ukrainian marines and other soldiers in Mariupol, and their stand pinned down Russian troops that could have been deployed elsewhere.
But the Kremlin claims it is “de-Nazifying” Ukraine, and it is using the Azov Regiment as propaganda to justify the invasion. In August Russia’s Supreme Court designated the Azov Regiment a terrorist organization, paving the way for lengthy jail sentences for its captured members. Leonid Slutsky, a deputy of the Russian Duma, has said Azov Regiment members “do not deserve to live.”
On paper Russia has a moratorium on the death penalty, though extrajudicial killings of Vladimir Putin’s political opponents abound. But earlier this year Russia’s subsidiary government in Donetsk sentenced three foreign nationals to death after they fought with Ukrainian forces. By holding the tribunal in the occupied city of Mariupol, the Kremlin may seek to execute Ukrainian soldiers while denying direct responsibility for their deaths.
Last week U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price denounced the Mariupol tribunals as “planned show trials” that are “illegitimate and a mockery of justice.” The Russian press has covered the construction of cages in Mariupol’s philharmonic hall to hold the captured Ukrainians at the trials. Mr. Pushilin said Syria, Belarus, Russia and possibly North Korea will observe the tribunal and ensure impartiality, according to the Economist. That’s apparently not a joke.
Ukrainian soldiers who fought in Mariupol and were released in a prisoner exchange say their captors tried to extract false confessions. “They threatened us with physical reprisals, shootings,” Dmytro Usychenko told reporters in Kyiv this month. “They wanted us to confess that we killed civilians although we did no such thing.” Vladyslav Zhaivoronok said some Ukrainian prisoners were tortured, “some had needles inserted into their wounds,” and others were deprived of adequate care.
Under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war have rights to humane treatment, access to medical care, and protection from acts of violence, intimidation, insult, public curiosity and reprisal. Soldiers who commit war crimes can be prosecuted and punished, but they can’t be tried merely for participating in combat. Russia is a signatory to the conventions. The kangaroo court in Mariupol is a clear violation, and the latest in a series of broken Russian promises that mark it as global rogue state.
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