Inside the POW camp holding Putin’s brainwashed soldiers

 To the voiceless, cowed men below, the freedom of the Ukrainian flag dancing above them in the breeze is a constant reminder of their own captivity.

These prisoners of war (PoW) have few choices. In the dining hall, lunchtime offers them two: take it or leave it. They all take it.

The sullen crowd traipses to metal tables fixed to the floor, carrying trays of soup, barley, meat and bread, all optimistically sprinkled with herbs from the prison garden. The tiny, green flecks do little to lighten the mood, and the food’s aroma dissipates in a warm room full of men in heavy, unwashed work clothes.

Shaven heads bow toward their trays and spoons work with rapid, mechanical efficiency. Meal done, each table of four rises as one and declares “thank you for lunch” in Ukrainian; a language many, being Russian, parrot in incomprehensible deference.

I am in the west of Ukraine visiting a camp at a location the authorities do not want me to specify. Talking to such men – and they are all men – is controversial journalistic territory.

The Third Geneva Convention of 1949 says PoWs should be treated in a way that preserves their dignity and protects them from harm during captivity and upon release. Media organisations are not signatories to the Geneva Conventions of course, but such treaties are sensible moral handrails. If the journalism adheres to the conventions, it should be in the right place.

Which is why I find myself in an exercise yard surrounded by hundreds of men in near-identical blue overalls, jackets and hats. I am eyed warily. Most shuffle away at my approach, but some agree to talk.

I make clear for the video recording that they are under duress, in as much as their liberty has been denied them, and only proceed when they have consented to be interviewed. Even so, I am careful to make my questions as bland as the lunch: no judgment, no ridicule.

As expected, most claimed little choice in their decision to join the Russian army. They were escaping prison, a difficult home life, a bleak opportunity-free existence. They all hope to be exchanged in the next PoW swap between Ukraine and Russia.

Those that had a view professed no ill-feeling towards Ukrainians; fighting was unwelcome, just an unfortunate consequence of their military service. The army decided their fate, they said, words and body language making it clear they had little more agency to resist the all-powerful state than they do in this prison.

Shaqma*, from Azerbaijan, even describes Ukrainian people as sweet and very nice. It is their misfortune to be powerless in the face of Europe’s overwhelming desire for Russia’s oil and resources.

France, Germany, and Britain forced Ukraine to fight; it was not the fault of Ukraine or even Russia, he tells me through my translator. Ukraine would be fine if Europe was not in this land, he shrugs. His gloomy conclusion: probably we will have a third world war.

Throughout our conversation, the language, if not the sentiment, is passive. Shaqma, like all the other prisoners and, indeed, like sweet old Ukraine itself, is just a bystander when decisions are made about this war, buffeted by the whims and passions of greater powers.

Surely he can’t be that restricted, I – hopefully – gently coax, mindful of the rules. What did he do before the war? Travel, is the unexpected answer, accompanied by something close to a smile: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Turkmenistan and Central Asia. Travel was his life before the army.

This sounds more positive, more hopeful. So, if he was able to speak to his younger self of a few years ago, would he make the same decision to fight for the Russian army? The smile, and his interest in any further conversation, vanishes, and I catch a brief glimpse of the brute just below the surface.

He is just a soldier, I am told. Russia has many soldiers and they don’t decide anything. Decisions are only taken by the heads of Russia.

Nearby, Alexander stands at the sagging middle of a makeshift washing line. He tells me he signed a contract with the Russian army while in prison back home. He knew he would go to Ukraine.

Many people from his brigade were killed and he was captured near Pokrovsk about a year ago. He just wanted to change his life, he says. But every day now he thinks about his decision. He doesn’t know what the future is and just hopes for the best.

My family and people at home in Russia don’t understand what is happening in Ukraine, he explains. Every side shows its own reality. Russian television shows their view on the war and Ukrainians theirs. And only when you actually go to the front lines, you can see the difference, he says through an expressionless face.

Most of the men gathered in clumps around the exercise yard are Russian, but other countries are represented here too. A Cuban explains – in Spanish – that he can’t speak a word of Russian; one possible reason for his capture, I guess.

Many of the Africans are especially glum, as the official from Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War explains to me. Countries such as Somalia or Libya are not at war against Ukraine so there is no mechanism – or particular desire – for their exchange; they will be going nowhere until this whole thing is over, and after that, who knows?

We move to a workshop, where I watch men robotically twist and join strips of green plastic twine until something approximating a Christmas tree appears. These can be sold, with the paltry earnings used to buy tea or chocolate from the prison shop. I’m still with the official from the Coordination Headquarters.

If many Russian captives have come from the prisons back home, I ask him, have they tried to install the codes and hierarchies of the Vory V Zakone? Meaning “thieves in law” in Russian, although better understood as the “thieves’ world”, the Vory is the mafia that runs Russian jails with brutal behavioural and cultural rules.

A quick snap of the official’s chin towards me suggests his terse response of “no, we don’t allow that kind of thing” masks a more nuanced answer that I’m not invited to explore.