SEEN FROM ELSEWHERE – The occupants of the largest prisoner-of-war center in Ukraine on the Western Front include mercenaries, ex-prisoners and volunteers. According to official data, kyiv has already exchanged 3,405 servicemen, and Moscow 3,205.
By Lola Hierro (El Pais)
Vlad stares at you with a smirk on his lips. At only 25 years old, he declares without trembling that he is a mercenary. He asks for cigarettes in exchange for an interview. “You can only get it from the Red Cross guys when they come through here.”. Since we don’t have any cigarettes, he ends up making do with some mint gum. He is one of the few inmates who agrees to talk during the visit of THE COUNTRY in the largest of three Russian POW centers in Ukraine. Located in the west, the authorities ask us not to reveal its exact location or number of inmates for security reasons. It houses several hundred men captured by the Ukrainian army on the front lines. All had better or worse lives before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Now, their existence is limited to waiting to be included in one of the prisoner exchanges…
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