Now held in a POW camp in western Ukraine, Anton does not consider himself a traitor. He calls Putin “my President” and said he joined Russia’s army to defend “my land,” the BBC reported.

The BBC interviews show what more than a decade of Russian rule has produced in occupied Donbas. Moscow has replaced Ukrainian schools, media, and public institutions while presenting the occupied regions as permanent parts of Russia. It also recruits residents or forces them to fight against Ukraine.

The BBC said prisoners could refuse and were interviewed without guards or cameras.

Almost all its Ukrainian-born interviewees from territories occupied since 2014 said they had enlisted willingly. Anton said he was not a traitor and called Vladimir Putin “my President.”

His friends also volunteered. Messages announcing their deaths followed: “Dead, dead, dead.”

Forced conscription of Ukrainians in occupied territory

One prisoner from Donetsk Oblast told the BBC he had been forced to fight. He wanted only to return to his wife and children.

The BBC cited an official intelligence-based estimate that Russia forcibly conscripted more than 50,000 Ukrainians in occupied areas. It noted that other estimates were higher.

Ukrainian veteran Pavlo Pshenychnyi told Hromadske that occupation authorities used planted drug evidence to push him into Russia’s army. They threatened him with up to 12 years in prison.

Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits occupying powers from compelling protected residents to serve in their armed forces.

Anton and the Russification of occupied Ukrainian territory

Russia took control of Anton’s home while he was still in primary school. By adulthood, he called himself Russian and dismissed his Ukrainian surname as irrelevant.

Putin’s 2025 policy decree set a 95% target for “all-Russian civic identity” by 2036 and ordered the integration of occupied Ukrainian regions into Russian education, culture, and media.

Kherson-based outlet MOST reported that Russia will introduce compulsory textbooks on 1 September, presenting four occupied Ukrainian regions as historically Russian.

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation reported in 2025 that more than 100 teenagers from occupied Luhansk attended a Russian military camp. They received firearms, drill, and guard-duty training.

The center described the camp as part of a wider effort to spread Russian war propaganda and hostility toward Ukraine.

Petro Yatsenko of Ukraine’s POW Coordination Headquarters told the BBC that these prisoners were strongly pro-Russian. He said their national identity was “very blurred.”

Ukraine still considers them Ukrainian and treats Russia’s control of their home regions as temporary, the BBC noted.

Less than a month after his release from Russian captivity, 57-year-old soldier Valery Zelensky died of injuries sustained under torture, Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne reported on July 6.

Zelensky had spent 39 months in Russian captivity. He was released as part of the landmark 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner deal on May 25. Just 22 days later, on June 16, his heart stopped.

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, his unit delivered weapons to Ukrainian forces in Mariupol, his daughter, Valeria Zelenka, said.

"When the offensive began, they were told that volunteers were needed to go on the assault. Out of 40 (people), eight said, 'We're going.' My father was one of them," she added.

The family did not immediately find out that he had been taken prisoner for some time, and he was considered missing in action. During his years in captivity, Zelensky's family received only one letter. He had long appeared on prisoner exchange lists but did not return until this year.

"The torture was not just cruel, it was inhuman. But he endured it," his daughter told Suspilne.

"He told me, 'Daughter, I endured it because of Kyokushin (a style of karate). I have discipline, I'm tough. My body and muscles protected me.'"

Valeria said her father had been overjoyed to come home and meet his grandson for the first time. He also expressed a desire to learn Ukrainian after years of speaking Russian.

Doctors initially treated him for suspected pancreatic issues, but his condition quickly deteriorated. During surgery, they discovered his organs were severely damaged. He died in intensive care days later.

"My father told me, 'Three people died among us from torture. And when I was in a very bad state, I asked God: Please let me see the eyes of my beloved,'" his daughter said.

A medical report listed extensive injuries. He had a non-functioning shoulder and arm and showed signs of multiple organ failures.

"The first feeling is inexhaustible pain that your loved one is no longer here. He was simply tortured," Valeria said. "And there is relief that he no longer feels that torture."

Zelensky's return was part of a wider prisoner exchange agreed during a first round of direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Istanbul.

The case is the latest in a number of Ukrainian soldiers' deaths after their return from Russian captivity, highlighting the effects of "widespread and systematic" torture of prisoners of war (POWs) in Russian prisons, reported by the U.N.

Serhii Dobrovolskyi, a Ukrainian soldier who had been in Russian captivity since 2023, died just a month after his release at the end of May as part of a 1000-for-1000 prisoner swap, an official from the soldier's home region announced on June 21.

In 2023, a high-ranking officer from the "Azov" brigade, Oleh Mudrak, died at 35 years old, months after his release from Russian captivity.

As a POW, he survived the Olenivka camp explosion and endured a dramatic weight loss in just 100 days, as seen in the photos published by Stanislav Aseyev, a Ukrainian writer and activist.

Dmytro Shapovalov, a 32-year-old defender of Ukraine who was exchanged in 2023 after over a year in Russian prisons, died on June 9, according to Suspilne.

Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) held in Russian captivity often face torture, abuse, and inhumane treatment, according to Ukrainian officials and human rights groups.

Many former POWs have reported beatings, starvation, and psychological pressure.

The exact number of Ukrainians currently held by Russia remains unknown. Kyiv continues to call for a full all-for-all exchange. Moscow has repeatedly rejected the offer.

‘Beyond cynical’ – Russian doctor carved ‘Glory to Russia’ scar on POW during operation, Ukraine says

After more than three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, each new revelation of cruel treatment of Ukrainians in Russian captivity hardly surprises anyone. But when a photo recently emerged online, showing a “Glory to Russia” scar on the body of a Ukrainian prisoner of war (POW), it sent shockwaves

The Kyiv IndependentDaria Shulzhenko

Ukrainian prosecutors have documented cases of Russian forces summarily executing 273 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs), the Liga.net news outlet reported, citing a statement from the Prosecutor General's Office.

Kyiv and the U.N. have raised alarm over the rising number of such cases, saying they point to a systematic policy by Russia to murder Ukrainian captives. Half of the document cases were recorded this year alone.

Seventy-seven criminal cases have been launched in connection with the killings of POWs, while only two people were convicted, and a trial against a third person is ongoing. The statement did not clarify whether the convictions were issued in absentia.

A total of 188 people have been convicted of various war crimes, including 18 captured Russian soldiers and one civilian, who were convicted in person. The rest were convicted in absentia.

Earlier this week, Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets reported a case of the likely murder of a Ukrainian POW who was apparently tied to a motorcycle by Russian soldiers and dragged along the road.

Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) said in May that it alone had documented more than 150 cases of Ukrainian soldiers being executed after surrendering to Russian forces. Multiple intelligence reports suggest that Russian soldiers have received explicit orders to kill prisoners of war.

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine confirmed in March growing numbers of incidents in which Russian forces killed or maimed surrendering Ukrainian troops.

A separate Ukrainian investigation is also underway into the killing of around 50 Ukrainian POWs in the Russian-run Olenivka prison in 2022. Kyiv blamed the killings on Russia, saying Moscow's forces deliberately put Azov fighters in a separate building that was later destroyed.

Russia denied responsibility, claiming the explosion was caused by a Ukrainian HIMARS strike—a version U.N. investigators have rejected.

Although Moscow blocked an independent investigation by denying U.N. monitors access, Lubinets recently said that an internal U.N. analysis concluded Russia was to blame.

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The Kyiv IndependentChris York

A Russian military court has convicted 184 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) captured in Kursk Oblast of acts of terrorism, Mediazona reported on June 25.

Ukraine first launched a surprise offensive into Russia's Kursk Oblast in August 2024. Ukrainian officials have said the incursion forced Russia to move resources away from its offensives in Eastern Ukraine.

Russia's military prosecutors office convicts Ukrainian POWs captured in Kursk Oblast on a regular basis, independent Russian outlet Mediazona reported.

The POWs captured in Kursk were charged with carrying out a grave terrorist act by a group of individuals, as outlined by the Russian Criminal Code.

Junior Lieutenant Yevhen Hoch was convicted of allegedly carrying out an act of terrorism by taking part in Ukraine's Kursk Oblast incursion.

Russia has waged its war against Ukraine since 2014 and initiated a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Russian authorities accused Hoch of interfering with civilian evacuations for three weeks amid Ukraine's Kursk offensive and for "intimidating them by openly carrying and using combat weapons."

Russia regularly convicts people of politically motivated charges in an effort to silence opposition to its war against Ukraine.

The Russian 2nd Western District Military Court has carried out the sentences against the 184 Ukrainian POWs since the beginning of the year.

Moscow has gone after journalists in Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories. Ukrainian Journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna disappeared in August 2023 and died after being tortured in Russian captivity. Roschyna's body was returned to Ukraine in February with missing organs.

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In a rare public sign that all is not well in Russia, two high-ranking Moscow officials last week issued separate warnings about the state of the country’s economy. Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina and Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov both highlighted that amid the Kremlin’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the tools Moscow once relied on to maintain wartime growth are nearly exhausted. Almost immediately, Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 20 dismissed the concerns, clai

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy

Serhii Dobrovolskyi, a Ukrainian soldier who had been in Russian captivity since 2023, has died just a month after his release at the end of May as part of a 1000-for-1000 prisoner swap, an official from the soldier's home region announced on June 21.

The case is the latest in a chain of Ukrainian soldiers' unexpected deaths after their return from Russian captivity, highlighting the effects of "widespread and systematic" torture of prisoners of war (POWs) in Russian prisons, reported by the U.N.

"Serhii Dobrovolskyi was released from captivity at the end of May this year. A few days ago, he was met by his fellow townspeople in his hometown," wrote the head of the soldier's native Zdolbuniv district in Rivne Oblast, Vladyslav Sukhliak, on Facebook. The exact cause of death was not immediately announced.

A video posted by the Zdolbuniv city council on June 17 shows Dobrovolskyi being greeted in Zdolbuniv by a crowd chanting the Ukrainian anthem as the soldier is hugging his mother. He was also presented with a korovai, a round bread loaf, as part of the symbolic Ukrainian tradition of welcome with bread and salt.

"Finally, after almost two years, the mother hugged her son," the Zdolbuniv city council commented on the video.

Sukhliak added that Dobrovolskyi was 43 years old at the time of death.  "The war with the damned (Russian) occupiers takes lives and health of the defenders," he wrote.

Earlier in June, another Ukrainian soldier returned from Russian captivity had died unexpectedly.

Dmytro Shapovalov, a 32-year-old defender of Ukraine who was exchanged in 2023 after over a year in Russian prisons, had died on June 9, according to the Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne.

His sister Anastasiia said that Shapovalov endured torture, hunger, and psychological pressure in captivity. After his release, Shapovalov returned to military service. He died in his sleep, presumably from heart failure, Suspilne reports.

After his death, a representative of the Coordination Headquarters managing the prisoner swaps, Yuliia Pavliuk, published a video showing Shapovalov eating an apple on the day of his release.

"I had just been dreaming about an apple for a year," Shapovalov says in the video.

In 2023, a high-ranking officer from the "Azov" brigade, Oleh Mudrak, died at 35 years old, months after his release from Russian captivity. As a POW, he survived the Olenivka camp explosion and endured a dramatic weight loss in just 100 days, as seen in the photos published by Stanislav Aseyev, a Ukrainian writer and activist.

Treatment of "Azov" fighters in Russian prisons is notoriously brutal due to their nationalistic values and Russian propaganda that worked for years to smear the unit's reputation both in Russia and internationally.

Some Azov fighters died from torture in Russian captivity or were sentenced to decades in prison for alleged war crimes. Many of them were among the 54 Ukrainian prisoners killed in an explosion in Olenivka penal colony in the Russian-occupied part of Donetsk Oblast on July 28, 2022.

Ukraine accused Russia of orchestrating the explosion, while Russia has been systematically preventing international organizations from conducting an independent investigation on the site of the attack.

The U.N. reported widespread torture of Ukrainian POWs in Russia and brutal conditions of their detention over the past years.

Russia ‘afraid to admit’ scale of losses, trying to hide by dumping soldiers’ bodies on Ukraine, Zelensky says

Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that at least 20 of the bodies Russia returned as Ukrainian were actually Russian soldiers, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy

Editor's note: The story is being updated.

Ukraine has brought home a group of soldiers released from Russian captivity, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on June 19, marking yet another in a recent series of exchanges with Moscow.

"These are warriors of the Armed Forces, the National Guard, and the State Border Guard Service. Most of them had been held captive since 2022," Zelensky said, without revealing their numbers.

The exchange follows four similar swaps carried out last week in accordance with Ukraine-Russia agreements reached at peace talks in Istanbul on June 2.

As in the other recent cases, the latest swap focused on severely ill and wounded prisoners of war (POWs), Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of POWs said.

"We are working to bring our people back. I thank everyone who helps make these exchanges possible. Our goal is to free every single one of them," Zelensky said.

Russia's Defense Ministry also announced a prisoner exchange with the Ukrainian side, without specifying the number of soldiers involved.

"Every defender released today has serious medical diagnoses and illnesses resulting from their injuries and captivity," the Coordination Headquarters said.

A significant part of the released captives defended Mariupol during the Russian siege in 2022, while others fought elsewhere in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kyiv oblasts. All of them are privates or non-commissioned officers.

The oldest of the released captives was 63 years old, Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said, adding that another, a 45-year-old service member, was released on his birthday.

The Istanbul deal was reached during the second round of direct talks between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Istanbul at the beginning of the month.

While no political breakthrough was achieved, both sides agreed to a phased exchange of prisoners and the repatriation of fallen soldiers' bodies. As part of that agreement, Russia pledged to return the bodies of up to 6,000 Ukrainian service members and citizens.

Moscow has handed over 6,057 bodies to Ukraine in several stages over the past few days. Kyiv later said these also included fallen Russian soldiers, though it is unclear whether this was done on purpose or by accident.

The June 2 agreements came after the largest-ever POW swap in late May, when 1,000 prisoners were exchanged on each side.

Ukraine repeatedly called for a prisoner exchange in an all-for-all format, but Russia continues to reject the offer.

Russia has handed Kyiv the bodies of its own soldiers mixed in with those of Ukrainian soldiers during recent repatriation of the fallen, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on June 16.

Klymenko's statement follows the completion of an exchange between Ukraine and Russia of the remains of soldiers killed in action earlier the same day, under agreements reached during recent peace talks in Istanbul.

Kyiv returned a total of 6,057 bodies. Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin and member of the Russian delegation at the Istanbul talks, claimed that Russia received the bodies of 78 deceased servicemen.

According to Klymenko, the identification process has been significantly complicated by the condition in which Russia returned the bodies.

"Parts of the bodies (of fallen soldiers) are in different bags. There are cases when the remains of one person are returned even during different stages of repatriation," the minister said.

Klymenko said that Russia may have included the bodies of its own soldiers in the transfer to Ukraine either on purpose or by accident.

"This could have been done by the Russians on purpose to increase the number of bodies transferred and to load our (forensic) experts with work, adding to all this cynical information pressure. Or it could be their usual negligent attitude toward their own people. In any case, we also identify these bodies," Klymenko said.

The June 2 negotiations in Istanbul resulted in the most expansive prisoner and body exchange agreement of the full-scale war, although no ceasefire was reached.

The deal followed the largest-ever POW swap in late May, when 1,000 prisoners were exchanged on each side. Additional exchanges last week included severely wounded and sick soldiers.

Russia accused Ukraine on June 7 of rejecting a proposed body return, publishing footage allegedly showing Ukrainian corpses stored in refrigeration units. Kyiv dismissed the claims, saying the footage was filmed inside Russia and not at a designated exchange location.

Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service reported on June 16 that Russia is preparing to escalate a disinformation campaign related to ongoing POW exchanges next week, aiming to provoke public outrage in Ukrainian society.

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In March 2025, as Ukrainian forces made their final retreat from Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, new grey spots began to appear on open-source maps on the other side of the state border, in Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast. For the first time since 2022, when Moscow’s forces retreated

The Kyiv IndependentFrancis Farrell