Russia ‘operating black market in Ukrainian prisoners of war’
Russian forces are operating a black market in prisoners of war, Ukrainian authorities have told The Times.
Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s co-ordination headquarters for the treatment of Pows, said Chechen paramilitary groups were buying captured Ukrainians from other Russian military factions. “There have been cases where they bought our wounded from the Russian army, took them to [the Chechen capital] Grozny, and then exchanged them for their own,” he said.
More than 10,000 Kadyrovites – soldiers loyal to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov – are thought to have crossed into Ukraine. Having been involved in heavy fighting around Mariupol and elsewhere in the early months of the war, their involvement has since largely been limited to policing and logistics operations.
Vyacheslav Levytskiy, 41, a driver and mechanic before the war, was captured by Donetsk militias in February 2023 and later sold to the Chechens.
He had been shot in both legs and the abdomen during a night raid on his position in a dugout in forests near Avdiivka. When he regained consciousness the following day, he was alone, and spent several days crawling across the frozen earth searching for the rest of his unit.
Eventually, he arrived at a Ukrainian position that had been seized by the enemy. He said his captors beat him with a spade in the hope of forcing him to reveal the wavelength used by Ukrainian radio operators.
Two days, later he was taken to a Chechen position several kilometres from the front and told he was going to Grozny.
He was later taken to a hospital where both his legs were amputated, one above the knee and the other below. His hands, severely frostbitten, were also removed.
In June 2023, he returned home as part of an exchange with 39 other Ukrainians. To date more than 2700 of his countrymen have been returned in similar deals, but 4000 more are believed to remain in captivity in Russia.
Levytskiy said he had been treated fairly by the Chechens, probably because they
Cigars are often seen as belonging to a bygone era, associated with elder statesmen such as Winston Churchill or the glamour of early Hollywood.
But research shows that their use is on the rise once more, as members of Generation Z increasingly opt to smoke tobacco in cigars – and even pipes – rather than in the form of cigarettes.
Young adults have driven a fivefold increase in non-cigarette tobacco smoking in England over the past decade. Some 772,800 people in England exclusively smoked using cigars or pipes in September last year, up from 151,200 in the same month of 2013.
Use is highest in those aged 18-24, with 3% of18-year-olds exclusivelysmoking cigars or pipes last year, compared with just 1% of 65-year-olds. This is a reversal of the situation 10 years ago.
Researchers from University College London, in a study funded by Cancer Research UK, analysed the results of a monthly smoking survey involving a representative sample of 200,000 adults.
They found a “concerning” increase in the proportion of people who said they did not smoke cigarettes but smoked tobacco using a pipe, cigar or shisha. Cigars come wrapped in tobacco leaves and, unlike cigarettes, typically do not have filters to block out tar.
The researchers said the increase in cigar use could be linked to the rising level of vaping among young people, as e-cigarettes may “prompt experimentation with other nicotine products”. sympathised with Ukraine’s plight, having themselves been subjected to Russian repression.
Russia waged two wars against the mountain republic during the 1990s and early 2000s, in the course of which Grozny was reduced to rubble.
Kadyrov’s father Akhmad had been a separatist leader, but switched sides during the second Chechen war and pledged allegiance to the Kremlin, for which he and his son were rewarded by being installed as the Moscow-backed head of the republic.
Speaking at a rehabilitation centre near Lviv, where he is learning how to walk with prosthetics, Levytskiy said: “They gave me a wheelchair. When I left, we even hugged and took a picture together.
“One Chechen commander said to me, ‘Once you guys beat off the Russians we will do the same’.”
Many of those held in Russian captivity have spoken of far worse treatment.
A United Nations report last year stated that 92% of the 200 Ukrainian Pows interviewed had been tortured or ill-treated to extract military information, to intimidate or humiliate them, or as a form of retribution. Forms of torture included beating, electrocution, or in several cases being shot or stabbed in the legs.
“More than 90% of prisoners ... say that they were subjected to torture, deprivation of nutrition and sleep,” Yatsenko said.
“People are being forced to burn out tattoos or to consume only Russian propaganda.” –
Another key factor is likely to be the ban on menthol cigarettes, which came into force in the UK in May 2020. The ban does not apply to non-cigarette tobacco products, and the study said the industry had “launched new products that bypass the legislation”.
Experts said they were particularly concerned about the rise in cigarillos – a type of small cigar wrapped in tobacco leaf – which are similar to cigarettes to smoke but significantly cheaper.
The study found that the biggest increase in cigar and pipe use coincided with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, possibly reflecting concerns over cigarettes raising the risk of severe cases of Covid. The pandemic also caused more people to shop for tobacco online, where there was a wider choice of products, the study said, while the cost of living crisis may have led to people switching from cigarettes to cheaper options.
Overall, about one in 10 British smokers exclusively used non-cigarette tobacco last year.
Dr Sarah Jackson, lead author of the paper and principal research fellow at UCL’S Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, said: “This 10-year study paints a concerning picture. Although rates of cigarette smoking have fallen, our data shows there has been a sharp rise in use of other tobacco products, particularly among young people.”
The British government has announced that it will ban the sale of tobacco to anyone born after January 1, 2009, under plans to create a “smoke-free generation”.
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