LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Russia and Ukraine each exchanged more than 100 prisoners of war over the weekend. Ukraine meanwhile says it captured hundreds of Russians during its surprise cross-border attack on Russia's Kursk region. France 24 correspondent Gulliver Cragg got a chance to visit a Ukrainian prison where some of those prisoners are held. He told me reporters were invited in because the Ukrainian government wanted to demonstrate that the Russians aren't being mistreated. So after his visit, that's where our conversation started. I asked Cragg if he could tell if the prisoners of war were being treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
GULLIVER CRAGG: From what we saw, yes, but it's not like we carried out a thorough investigation and saw all of the prisoners that Ukraine has taken in the offensive in Kursk region. And there was nothing that I saw that seemed in any way shocking. They're sleeping on bunk beds that aren't particularly comfortable. I didn't see any of them that showed signs of having been beaten or anything, but if anybody had been, of course, they wouldn't show it to us. But the Red Cross, the ICRC was also invited there and generally is given access to Ukrainian prisoners, and they are able to make much more thorough reports and to do it, you know, in a professional way.
FADEL: Now, you spoke with some of these prisoners, but you were careful to conceal their identities, their faces. What did they tell you?
CRAGG: Clearly, these are prisoners who are very likely to be exchanged and go back to Russia. And so they don't want to be in trouble in Russia. They are going to be limited in what they can say. I kind of found it more interesting to include the soundbites of the deputy head of the prison and the soldier who's responsible for bringing prisoners of war in because what they had to say seemed to be more interesting.
FADEL: What did the prison officials tell you?
CRAGG: So I could hear in the background that this soldier seemed to be talking in a reasonably friendly way and having a bit of a laugh with one of the prisoners. So then afterwards, I asked him about that. Does he feel any kind of empathy towards them? He said absolutely not. He said, these people are our enemies, and you really got to realize that Ukrainians feel deep, deep anger towards all Russians, pretty much.
FADEL: You said that you were very careful with the prisoners. Were there any indications that they were under duress or told to talk to you in a specific way or could they speak freely?
CRAGG: No, not at all. Just they were told that by talking to us, they would increase their chances of being released, but I do believe that the Ukrainian side genuinely believes that's the case and that media attention on the prisoners of war is likely to accelerate prisoner swap. So I just think as a matter of principle, you cannot consider that they're free to speak their mind.
FADEL: As we both know, it's very sensitive when you're invited to speak to prisoners of war. You know, I've thought of moments in time in Libya, for example, where it was clear they were under duress, being mistreated, being told to tell us certain things, that we didn't do those types of things. Journalistically, when you weighed the decision to go, what were you thinking about the journalistic value of going to this prison and reporting on what you saw?
CRAGG: So I was quite curious from a personal point of view to meet them. But I was very, very hesitant about it because of just the principle of the fact that even if I go there and they don't seem to be under any kind of duress, and I might genuinely believe that they're not under any kind of duress, but I cannot prove that. I might be wrong, and there's no way to know. So the thing I also really very much wanted to draw attention to, because I think it's really important, is that there are 14,000 at least Ukrainian prisoners of war or - that's not only counting military, that's also counting civilians. That's a huge amount of people who are in detention in Russia.
FADEL: And how many Russian citizens are being held in Ukraine?
CRAGG: We don't know. They wouldn't tell us. They wouldn't even tell us how many prisoners they had taken in the course of this offensive in Kursk region. They just said, please say it's in the hundreds. I've heard it's more than 1,000, but they didn't want us to give numbers. They said, please be vague.
FADEL: France 24 correspondent Gulliver Cragg spoke with some Russian prisoners at a site where they are being held in Ukraine. Thank you so much for your time.
CRAGG: Thanks a lot. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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