Russia captures Ukrainians but does not recognise them as prisoners

Prominent Russian human rights defender Pavel Chikov wrote about this on his Telegram channel

In his conclusions, the lawyer refers to the first case of a Ukrainian prisoner of war tried by a Russian court

The case concerns Ukrainian citizen Nikita Shkryabin, who was seized by the Russian military in March and has since been held by the Russian Ministry of Defence at an undisclosed location.

Shkryabin was detained "for opposing a special military operation", said the Russian Defence Ministry's response, which the Ukrainian student's Russian lawyer, Leonid Solovyov, received in September.

Shkryabin's whereabouts and the procedural grounds for his detention were not reported to the lawyer, citing "information of limited distribution". The lawyer was expressly denied a visit to him. The Defence Ministry does not recognise Shkryabin as a prisoner of war.

Solovyov's lawyer appealed to the Investigative Committee and then to the garrison court, claiming a crime committed by unidentified Russian military personnel who had been detaining his client for a long time. But investigators and the court found the inaction of the investigation lawful.