Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are being detained across Russia and the Ukrainian territories it occupies, in centers ranging from brand-new wings in Russian prisons to clammy basements.
"The Ukrainian civilians woke long before dawn in the bitter cold, lined up for the single toilet and were loaded at gunpoint into the livestock trailer. They spent the next 12 hours or more digging trenches on the front lines for Russian soldiers.
Many were forced to wear overlarge Russian military uniforms that could make them a target, and a former city administrator trudged around in boots five sizes too big. By the end of the day, their hands curled into icy claws.
Nearby, in the occupied region of Zaporizhzhia, other Ukrainian civilians dug mass graves into the frozen ground for fellow prisoners who had not survived. One man who refused to dig was shot on the spot — yet another body for the grave."
The man who refused is the smart one.
Treating civilians as war criminals is depressing to me.
Russia’s treatment of captured civilians and POWs has always been inhuman. Even during WW2, they had a worse reputation than the Nazis.
Unfortunately till recently, Western nations were quick to forgive Russia and overlook it’s cruelty, even when many of ex-Soviet countriess sounded their alarm.Even now they’re going slow in supplying much needed equipment and ammo because they don’t have the same urgency. If we non-Ukranians are traumatised by reports of Russian cruelty, how much more desperate must Ukraine be to free its people from the same Russian cruelty?
Yet Western politicians complain that Ukraine, which is desperately fighting for its very survival and is reduced to rationing out ammo due to shortage, demands ammo & equipment instead of wasting time on niceties and buttering up their ego. Maybe it’s because they think that ex-Soviet nations will act as buffers between them and Russian aggression so they’re safer or because they’re comfortable with Putin, a known devil, heading Russia and want him to save face & not lose.
