Kadyrov announces plans to use Ukrainian prisoners as human shields

On December 4, the head of the Russian region of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, presented Ukrainian prisoners of war held in the republic to the “direct line” and announced plans to place them on the roofs of strategically important facilities.

“Let them guard our territories,” Kadyrov declared, suggesting that one of the prisoners “shoot himself” and effectively forcing another to publicly ask the Ukrainian authorities for an exchange. State media later reported that Kadyrov had arrived at the “direct line” in a “captured” American Bradley infantry fighting vehicle.

On the morning of December 4, Chechnya was attacked by a drone for the second time since the start of the war with Ukraine. The official Russian Defense Ministry did not report the attack, but Kadyrov acknowledged it, stating that there were casualties.

This is already the second statement by Kadyrov about using Ukrainian prisoners to cover facilities in Chechnya. On October 29, drones attacked the so-called “Vladimir Putin Special Forces University,” a military training center in the city of Gudermes. At the time, the Chechen leader said that Ukrainian prisoners of war were being used to cover up this “university,” and that there were casualties among them. The use of prisoners of war as human shields is explicitly prohibited by the 1929 Geneva Convention, which regulates the treatment of prisoners of war.