Russia says a battalion made up of Ukrainian prisoners of war is about to be sent to fight against their own country

• Ukrainian prisoners of war will soon be fighting against their own country, Russian state media says.
• Russia is deploying a force of them with a formation currently fighting in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.

Russia says a battalion of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) will soon be sent to the front lines, state media said in a report on how they will fight against their own country.

Russia claims the troops have taken an oath of allegiance, but the move could still be a violation of international laws concerning warfare. It also raises questions about the need to use POWs, questions in particular about the state and quality of Russia's forces as they suffer high casualties on the battlefield.

On November 7, Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti said Ukrainian POWs in the "Bogdan Khmelnitsky" battalion swore an oath of allegiance to Russia and would soon deploy into battle. The outlet had previously said in late October that Russian authorities were planning to send the group — described as a battalion including about 70 prisoners from various penal colonies — to the front lines and that they were conducting relevant training in preparation.

Now, with training completed, the troops will be sent into battle, operating under the larger Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) "Kaskad" formation, The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said, citing several Russian sources. That suggests the POWs will be fighting on the front lines along the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, where Kaskad has been active, ISW added.

Both areas have seen heavy fighting in recent weeks. Around Avdiivka on the border of occupied Donetsk, Russia has launched a renewed offensive that's resulted in significant Russian casualties, as well as severe vehicle losses. And Zaporizhzhia has been the focus of Ukraine's counteroffensive, where troops hoped to push past fortified Russian defenses and break occupied territory down to the Sea of Azov, effectively cutting Russian territory in that area in half, but have struggled to do so.

The details surrounding the coming deployment of Ukrainian POWs are murky. The battalion of POWs has previously been called a "volunteer" group, and its commander said that their contracts were "concluded on general terms," RIA Novosti said. State media has previously said they were "recruited." The language used may indicate the troops will receive salaries and benefits for their service comparable to their Russian counterparts.

It remains unclear, though, whether or not the soldiers were coerced into joining or did so of their own accord, as Russia suggests.

The deployment of POWs in service of the side that captured them could be a violation of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War, which says "no prisoner of war may at any time be sent to or detained in areas where he may be exposed to the fire of the combat zone," nor shall they "be employed on labor which is of an unhealthy or dangerous nature."

Ukraine has a battalion of Russians fighting for it, but it says that they purposefully traveled to Ukraine to sign up with the armed forces and fight for it, a very different approach from Russia's penal colony recruitment efforts.