Prisoners as Political Commodities in the Occupied Areas of the DonbasAseyev, S. & Umland, AApril

of April 2019 the Ukrainian government had freed 3,233 Ukrainians from illegal One of the largest POW exchanges of the detention.4 Reliable data on the number and entire conflict occurred shortly after the character of those currently detained in the major Battle of Ilovays’k in the summer of ORDLO are difficult to obtain as the self- 2014, which ended in the defeat of Ukrainian proclaimed authori. [...] Even then, the The treatment and purpose of four were handed over not to officials in Kyiv, detainees in the DNR/LNR but to a Ukrainian political actor well-known for his ties to the Kremlin.17 The topic of the illegal detention and torture A large prisoner exchange took place on 29 of prisoners in the ORDLO has been more December 2019. [...] A number of Commissioner for Human Rights of steps could help to improve the human the Council of Europe should include rights situation more generally, and ease the the human rights situation in fate of detainees in the two pseudo- DNR/LNR in her reporting on republics in particular: Ukraine, without legitimizing the de facto authorities. [...] The OSCE and Normandy bringing the dire situation of political Format partners should insist on detainees in the Donbas and Crimea reviving the practice of regular to the attention of governments and prisoner exchanges in the Donbas. [...] This concerns, in particular, the implementation of international humanitarian law in the conflict zones of the protracted conflicts in Eastern Europe, and the possibility of eventually holding accountable the perpetrators of crimes such as those indicated above.