Russia set up fake humanitarian groups to imitate Red Cross — Ukrainian intel
Illustrative photo: Russia has replaced the Red Cross with fake humanitarian organizations (Getty Images)
Pseudo-humanitarian organizations operating in Russia that are controlled by the intelligence services and pose as structures that allegedly take care of Ukrainian prisoners of war, according to the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine.
According to the DIU, these fake organizations perform several tasks at once: on the one hand, they imitate assisting Ukrainian prisoners, and on the other hand, they are used as a pretext to prevent real international missions from entering the places of detention.
"As of today, there is information about 186 places of detention of Ukrainian prisoners where Russians do not allow representatives of the Red Cross and other monitoring missions to visit," the DIU said.
In addition to disinformation, such fake organizations use relatives of prisoners as a source of confidential information. Under the guise of so-called assistance, they are forced to pass on data that can later be used against Ukraine.
The intelligence service urged Ukrainians to be vigilant and not to contact suspicious organizations, even if they call themselves humanitarian or human rights organizations.
The only authorized body dealing with the return of prisoners remains the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners.
Amidst the growing number of prisoners in the Russian army, Russia has initiated a campaign to adapt its command staff to the specifics of working with the criminal contingent.
According to the authors of the guidelines, the usual management mechanisms do not work in such teams, and therefore, officers need to look for a separate approach to “prisoners” to build discipline.
