The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) seeks Russia’s access to wounded Ukrainian prisoners of war and the bodies of the dead in the Yelenovka colony. Oleksandr Vlasenko, representative of the ICRC delegation in Ukraine, said this in an interview with DW. He also said whether the international organization was guaranteeing the security of Azovstal’s Ukrainian military after they were captured by Russia.

DW: Mr. Vlasenko, after the death of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Yelenovka, located on the territory of the Donetsk region temporarily occupied by Russia, criticism is heard of the International Committee of the Red Cross that the organization guaranteed the safety of the surrendered military of Azovstal, but these guarantees were cynically violated. How does the ICRC handle these accusations?

Alexandre Vlasenko: The International Committee of the Red Cross is an international organization that operates under an international mandate agreed by all countries in the world: we are the ones who help the population that is suffering due to a military conflict or a situation of internal violence, and our activities are limited and regulated by international humanitarian law. We can only act in accordance with what is enshrined in the four Geneva Conventions and other instruments that make up international humanitarian law. These documents define our role as a neutral intermediary.

Yes, we, as a neutral intermediary, interacting with the conflicting parties, contribute to the safe exit of people from the Azovstal factory. And considering that at that time they were prisoners of war, we recorded their data. This was done with the understanding that the ICRC would later be granted permission to visit these prisoners of war and, in accordance with the rules of international humanitarian law, i.e. the Geneva Conventions, verify their condition and conditions of detention, and also to help them get in touch with their families.

We never guarantee the safety of prisoners of war after they have fallen into enemy hands, as this is beyond our ability. We inform the conflicting parties about this in advance and clearly. Ensuring the protection of prisoners of war from any acts of violence, intimidation, torture, from the curiosity of the great masses, from their public presentation somewhere in the air, is the responsibility of the party to the conflict that detains these people. Just as caring for the bodies of the dead is entrusted to the side of the conflict that has these bodies. We cannot control the fate of these people because, again, according to the Geneva Conventions, these responsibilities are assigned to the side of the conflict. And only the party in conflict is able to effectively guarantee the safety of these people. We act in accordance with what is permitted under international humanitarian law, and we do so in all military conflicts around the world.

“We only guarantee a safe exit from Azovstal”

– You say you could not give such guarantees of security to prisoners of war. So what was your organization’s role during the Ukrainian military’s departure from Azovstal?

– We guarantee your safe departure. The fact that they are going to leave and not be executed, killed, that nothing is going to happen to them during the exit. We also record them. As a rule, we receive data from the family members of those captured, they contact us, we register and we start looking for these people. In this case, we record who left and who wanted to sign up. Thus, we bypassed this intermediary link in the form of relatives and their testimonies, and we were able to immediately take care of who left.

The first step is registration, then we can demand a visit to them. This is regulated by the Third Geneva Convention (on the treatment of prisoners of war. – Red.), which gives us the right to visit any prisoner of war places of detention. We have the freedom to choose the places we want to visit, as well as how many we want to visit. There are no restrictions here. We wanted to have a dialogue with prisoners of war without witnesses, to find out if they are being tortured, how they are being treated, and also to visit all the facilities where they are being held to verify whether these facilities comply with the norms of international law or not.

– In other words, has the ICRC given any guarantees?

– Yes, there were guarantees, but only for leaving the territory of the Azovstal factory and until the moment when people boarded the buses.

– On the current situation with the death of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Yelenovka. Do you have access to the bodies of the dead? Do you have exact lists of the dead? What is it now with the wounded and other prisoners of war?

– Immediately after what happened, we requested access to the Yelenovka correctional colony and all the places where the wounded were evacuated, where the bodies of the dead were transported and where other prisoners of war were transported, because, as I understand it, lo, they are now not directly on Yelenovka. It’s important for us to have access not to where they were, but to the people. And people can now be elsewhere. We are in the process of negotiation.

We do not have an official response to our request and official confirmation of access to prisoners of war and victims of this attack. We want to go there, offer assistance with the evacuation of the wounded, we can provide medical supplies and of course we have forensic experts who would like to see the bodies of the people who died as a result of this tragedy. Of course, when we get there, we can get lists of people whose status has changed: the dead, the wounded. We’d like to see everyone’s lists. If there are people there that we didn’t register when we left Azovstal, we are ready to register them, if they wish, to inform their relatives of their whereabouts afterwards.

“We will not participate in the investigation – that is not our role”

– After the tragedy, the Ukrainian side demanded access by international organizations to the Yelenovka colony for an impartial international investigation. Has your organization received such proposals? Do you conduct such investigations?

– I will refer again to our mandate. We do not investigate violations of international humanitarian law for publication or distribution. Our mandate does not cover that. We don’t even participate in litigation. We have immunity from testifying in court on this matter. This does not mean that we do not collect data on these facts. We do collect them, but this means that we will not testify and will not provide information for legal proceedings to any judicial or investigative authority. This is enshrined in international law.

We are actively working to ensure that the parties comply with international humanitarian law in order to avoid potential violations of this law. We collect information to conduct a confidential dialogue with conflicting parties. And in connection with that dialogue, we can document allegations of violation, but that cannot be called an investigation. We will not be involved in any investigations because it is not our job.

– And will you have access to prisoners of war, in particular, of “Azov”, after the decision of the Supreme Court of Russia to recognize this regiment as a “terrorist” organization? From Russia’s point of view, these people are no longer prisoners of war, but “terrorists”. Will anything change now in your mandate and in the negotiations on access to them?

– Nothing changes in our mandate, as it is regulated by international documents that cannot be changed retroactively. Perhaps this has some consequences, but all this will be decided in a dialogue with representatives of the Russian authorities. Not yet ready to say what it will be like.

“We are still not 100% able to confirm the lists”

– Do you have contact with the families of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Azovstal, because they say they will ask for the resignation of the ICRC head due to the organization’s inaction?

– We have contact with the families. But we don’t divide the prisoners of war between those in Azovstal or elsewhere. For us, they are all the same. We keep in touch with everyone. We inform people who have opened a process to search for missing persons, about whom we have information. We understand that people who have some information that their relatives were perhaps in Yelenovka in a correctional colony want to confirm or deny this. And they appeal again to the Geneva Convention – after all, each side, in this case Russia, must tell us who specifically died and who was wounded. We have a central tracking agency. It collects information, and each party must report such things to us so that we can inform relatives. We have “hotlines” at the central investigation agency, e-mail, but so far we cannot confirm the lists one hundred percent. To do that, we need to get to the scene of the tragedy and see the people.

– You say that, according to the Geneva Convention, the parties to a conflict are obliged to report in the lists of prisoners of war who have died. Does the Russian side adhere to this and is there any liability for non-compliance with this obligation?

– Doubts about liability for non-compliance can be answered by lawyers, specialists in international humanitarian law. We do not know to what extent the parties fulfill their obligations, as this cannot be verified. We have lists of people on both sides, but it’s hard to say how complete or exhaustive they are. We work with the lists provided to us.

– How many people are now on your POW lists?

– I cannot cite a figure, because we, as a neutral organization, do not express anything that could jeopardize our neutrality. As the number of dead or injured is part of the important information and each side prohibits the release of this data, we will not make it public.