9 Ukrainian women facing years in a Russian prison were just released in a swap

Nearly 100 prisoners of war were recently released in an exchange between Russia and Ukraine, including nine Ukrainian women who were currently on trial in Russia, accused by prosecutors of supporting terrorism because of their connection to the Azov Regiment.

The women, many of whom reportedly worked as cooks and in support roles with the military unit, have been in Russian custody since the spring of 2022, and were on trial with 15 Ukrainian men.

One of the final hearings in the case was supposed to take place on Wednesday, but CBC News has learned that when the prisoners were led into the courtroom in Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia, all of the women on trial were absent and no longer in the detention centre.

At that time, there was speculation that the prisoner exchange was in the works.

The trial, which human rights groups have called a “sham” began in June 2023.

Initially, 24 Ukrainians were being prosecuted in the case, but two prisoners were swapped shortly after the trial began, and in July of this year, it was confirmed that another died while in custody.

The nine women who have just been released will likely still be charged in absentia, along with 12 men who remain in custody in Russia, according to a source close to the case.

‘Political prisoners’

“We consider these people as political prisoners,” said Sergei Davidis, head of the Political Prisoners Support Program for the human rights group Memorial, based in Moscow.

“They’re not charged with war crimes. They are charged just with participation in the Ukrainian military forces defending the country against Russian aggression.”

Under the Geneva Convention on PoWs, soldiers cannot be prosecuted for fighting for their country, but they can be charged with any acts, such as torture, that breach international humanitarian law.

In this case, Russian prosecutors accuse the individuals of supporting terrorism and taking part in military action to overthrow the Russian-backed authorities in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, an area laid claim to by Russia.

Russia’s Supreme Court declared the Azov Regiment a terrorist organization in August 2022, six months after the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The military unit played a pivotal role in trying to defend the city of Mariupol against the Russian siege in 2022, which reduced large swaths of the city to rubble.

The regiment, which has far-right and ultra-nationalist origins, began as a militia in eastern Ukraine in 2014, but it has since been folded into Ukraine’s National Guard.

It is estimated that hundreds of current and former members of Azov are still being held in Russia as prisoners of war.

Father and son detained 

On Friday, it was revealed that 49 Ukrainian prisoners were released by Russia as part of the exchange, while the media in Ukraine reported that 44 Russian prisoners were released by Kyiv. Ukrainian officials posted videos of tearful reunions and phone calls as the men and women exited a bus at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, many wrapped in Ukrainian flags.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that the group was made up of civilians and soldiers, including those from the armed forces, the National Guard, the police and the border guard service. Russia hasn’t commented on the swap.

The 12 men who remain on trial in Russia could be sentenced as early as next month, with some of them facing up to 24 years in prison.

Among the group is Oleksandr Irkha, 45, whose family said he hadn’t been a part of Azov since 2020.

Instead of being captured on the battlefield, his son told CBC News that his father was detained after Russian forces, who occupied the Mariupol area, came to his house in April 2022.

“We were just hiding from the shelling, getting food, water and just waiting for [the fighting] to be further away,” Andrii Irkha, 25, said in an interview via Zoom, adding that he and his father lived 300 metres apart in a village just outside of Mariupol.

Andrii Irkha said when Russian soldiers came to his house, they found identification showing he used to work for the local police. He was detained, and a short time later, so was his father.

Irkha said he and his father saw each other at a filtration centre, where they were interrogated by Russian forces and checked for tattoos.

While the younger Irkha was released about eight days later, he said his father was taken away.

“For a whole year we knew nothing about him,” he said. “Everyone thought that he was not alive.”

Families given few details

Irkha, who now lives in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, said he only discovered that his father was in Russian custody when someone sent him a YouTube video of coverage from the court case.

He said Oleksandr was with an Azov tank unit between 2015 and 2020, but he never actually fought with the regiment and ended up leaving the unit to work as a metal cutter.

The family says it is baffled as to how Oleksandr ended up on trial in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

Irkha said it has been very difficult for him and other Ukrainian relatives to get details about the court case, but he has been able to communicate with his father through the court’s electronic mail system.

He said he last heard from his father two months ago, when Oleksandr asked his son to send him food and cigarettes and wanted to know if there was any news about a possible prisoner exchange.

The trial isn’t being widely covered in Russia, and while each defendant has legal representation, the Irkha family hasn’t received any information from Oleksandr’s Russian lawyer.

Irkha said he hopes his father shares the same fate as the prisoners who were released.

“This exchange is a kind of good wake-up call for me, that they exchanged women who were on the same dock with my father a week ago,” he said. “It gave me hope again that one day my father will be exchanged and that they will not be forgotten.”