Any combatants committing crimes against civilians on Russian soil will be treated as terrorists, the Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a visit to Kursk Region. Foreign mercenaries fighting for Ukraine should be aware that they do not have the same legal protections under international law as regular Ukrainian combatants.
Speaking at a meeting with the Russian General Staff and military commanders on Wednesday, the president stated that any Ukrainian soldier or foreign mercenary captured on Russian soil can be “treated as a terrorist under Russian law.”
“All people who commit crimes against the civilian population on the territory of the Kursk Region, confront our Armed Forces, law enforcement agencies and special services, are terrorists in accordance with the laws of the Russian Federation,” Putin said. “This is how the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office and the Investigative Committee qualify their actions.”
Putin stressed that Russia “treats and will treat all people humanely,” including prisoners of war (POWs), but warned that mercenaries lack the same legal status as regular troops.
“I still want to remind you that foreign mercenaries are not protected by the 1949 Geneva Convention on POWs,” the Russian leader said.
According to the Leftist website The Spinoff there is an “unknown number of New Zealanders fighting in Ukraine. Some have a public persona … while others prefer to lay low. In 2023, one estimate put the number at “somewhere between 15–25 New Zealanders” on the frontline at any particular time. But no one knows for sure.”