The Minister of Justice Denys Maluska has explained why many russian war prisoners and their well-provided imprisonment are needed by Ukraine.
In his Facebook, Maluska has voiced several reasons for the importance of the war prisoners for the Ukrainian interests.
“Firstly, this is the message for the russian military. Surrendering is not scary. Nothing very critical will happen afterwards. Please, lay down your arms, stop fighting, come here, we will capture you,” the minister of justice has said.
He has noted that the russian propaganda is distributing fakes as if “a really bad treatment awaits the russians in captivity, they will be tormented… Actually, no. We do not do anything like this, on the contrary, we provide normal conditions of imprisonment, according to the international standards in Geneva Conventions”.
Denys Maluska has emphasized that many war prisoners of the rf are very valuable not only as the accused, but also as the witnesses in criminal proceedings, opened because of the russia’s crimes.
“We must make the higher military and political leadership of the rf take the criminal responsibility. And the war prisoners will prove useful for this. They will tell who has given them orders, when and how they have followed them,” the minister noted.
Maluska has emphasized, “They are barbarians. We are not barbarians. We are fighting according to the agreed rules for the military actions. …It is beneficial for russians to tarnish our reputation in the world and, with it, to diminish the support of the international community. They are not going to succeed in this. We are open. We are showing that we keep the war prisoners in the proper way”.
The minister of justice has noted that the russian war prisoners are “a good commodity for exchange”, since a lot of Ukrainians are being imprisoned by the rf. “There more war prisoners are there, the more important they are for the enemy, the better for us,” Maluska has stressed.
The head of the Ministry of Justice has reminded, that Verkhovna Rada has recently released a law that regulates the issues of the war prisoners. The document will finally allow creating a camp for the war prisoners, who are nowadays scattered in the different parts of Ukraine.
The Office of the President has reported that 24 representatives of the Ukrainian authorities are being imprisoned by the occupants.