Russia refuses to agree on mixed medical boards for POW exchanges: Ukraine sends letter to Red Cross
Pravda Ukraine
As of mid-November, Russia has still not agreed to the possibility of working with mixed medical boards, which are essential for exchanges of seriously wounded and ill prisoners of war.
Source: This was announced by the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War in a letter to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Details: The Coordination Headquarters noted that Ukraine took the decision to establish mixed medical boards in August and by September had completed all the domestic procedures required for their work to start.
Similar medical boards should have been formed in Russia, but as of mid-November, the International Committee of the Red Cross has yet to receive approval from Russia regarding the possibility of such medical boards operating.
Since Russia failed to meet the deadlines for approving candidates for doctors from neutral countries to sit on the medical boards, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War appealed to the ICRC.
Ukraine is insisting that the Red Cross and other international organisations take action to force Russia to fulfil its obligations.
In the course of Russia’s full-scale invasion, many doubts have built up in Ukrainians’ minds about the effectiveness of the International Committee of the Red Cross – particularly given that the organisation is unable to give answers to requests about the location of missing persons or captives and does not visit their places of detention.
The ICRC promised to guarantee the safety of Ukrainian defenders who left the Azovstal steelworks in May 2022, but it did not do so. The Red Cross also pledged to ensure that Ukrainian prisoners of war could contact their families.
In November 2022, the Ukrainian Ombudsman called on the Red Cross to use the correct terms for the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine – to call the war a “war” and not a “Ukrainian crisis”.
In July 2023, the Red Cross announced a reduction in funding for humanitarian needs in Ukraine.
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