Russia: ‘Nothing humiliating’ in publicly parading Ukraine POWs
26 Aug 2014 6:20 AM IST
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that parading Ukrainian prisoners of war through a baying crowd in a rebel-held city was not demeaning.
‘I saw images of that parade and I didn’t see anything close to what could be considered as humiliating,’ Lavrov said at a news conference.
‘Concerning the degrading treatment of war prisoners, let the lawyers handle it,’ he added.
He was referring to a parade in Ukraine’s rebel stronghold of Donetsk on Sunday in which 40 or 50 Ukrainian soldiers were made to walk through a jeering crowd in the main square.
Furious onlookers shouted ‘Fascists! Fascists!’ and threw empty bottles and rotten food at the captured troops, who walked with heads bowed and hands behind their backs.
The move was seen as a riposte to Independence Day celebrations and a military parade in Kiev on Sunday, and appeared to recall the infamous World War II event in 1944 when Soviet soldiers marched thousands of defeated German troops through Moscow.
As in 1944, cleaning trucks followed the captives in Donetsk, spraying water to ‘cleanse’ the streets after they had passed.
After four months of fighting in eastern Ukraine, the daily pummelling of cities by government forces and 2,200 deaths—mostly of civilians—many in region said the treatment of the captives as justified.
‘You want to kill our people!’ one man in the crowd shouted at the bandaged and clearly terrified detainees.
A Human Rights Watch expert on Sunday called the parading of the Ukrainian troops a war crime.
‘The Geneva Conventions’ common article 3, which applies to all non-international armed conflicts, prohibits ‘outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment’,’ HRW’s Ole Solevang said on the group’s website.
‘This parade is a clear violation of that absolute prohibition, and may be considered a war crime,’ he added.
‘I saw images of that parade and I didn’t see anything close to what could be considered as humiliating,’ Lavrov said at a news conference.
‘Concerning the degrading treatment of war prisoners, let the lawyers handle it,’ he added.
He was referring to a parade in Ukraine’s rebel stronghold of Donetsk on Sunday in which 40 or 50 Ukrainian soldiers were made to walk through a jeering crowd in the main square.
Furious onlookers shouted ‘Fascists! Fascists!’ and threw empty bottles and rotten food at the captured troops, who walked with heads bowed and hands behind their backs.
The move was seen as a riposte to Independence Day celebrations and a military parade in Kiev on Sunday, and appeared to recall the infamous World War II event in 1944 when Soviet soldiers marched thousands of defeated German troops through Moscow.
As in 1944, cleaning trucks followed the captives in Donetsk, spraying water to ‘cleanse’ the streets after they had passed.
After four months of fighting in eastern Ukraine, the daily pummelling of cities by government forces and 2,200 deaths—mostly of civilians—many in region said the treatment of the captives as justified.
‘You want to kill our people!’ one man in the crowd shouted at the bandaged and clearly terrified detainees.
A Human Rights Watch expert on Sunday called the parading of the Ukrainian troops a war crime.
‘The Geneva Conventions’ common article 3, which applies to all non-international armed conflicts, prohibits ‘outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment’,’ HRW’s Ole Solevang said on the group’s website.
‘This parade is a clear violation of that absolute prohibition, and may be considered a war crime,’ he added.
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