UK tells OSCE Ukrainian soldiers are lawful combatants

Britain has told the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe that Ukrainian soldiers are lawful combatants entitled to protection as prisoners of war if captured.

Colonel Joby Rimmer, the senior military adviser to the UK delegation, said Russia had called support for Ukraine’s defence “financing of terrorism” at the forum the previous week. “They are not terrorists,” he said of Ukrainian service personnel.

Rimmer made the statement in Vienna on 11 November. The British government published the text the following day.

He said members of Ukraine’s regular armed forces, apart from medical personnel and chaplains, had the right to take part in hostilities. Describing their defence as terrorism, he argued, could not remove their combatant or prisoner-of-war status. He added that international humanitarian law applies to all parties to the conflict.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says prisoners of war cannot be prosecuted for lawful acts of combat, although they may be prosecuted for possible war crimes.