The Council reiterates that the return of all prisoners of war, civilian hostages, illegally deported persons and children forcibly transferred to the territory of the russian federation is a key priority of the Ukrainian state. All prisoners of war must be released by complete exchange. All deported and unlawfully displaced Ukrainian children, and all other Ukrainian civilians who were unlawfully detained, must be returned to Ukraine, as specified in the Joint Communique of June 16, 2024, on the results of the Global Peace Summit and in the Peace Formula of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi.

We emphasize the inadmissibility of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment that russia systematically applies to Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian hostages.

russia's treatment of prisoners of war must fully comply with the provisions of the Third Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949, and Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1977.

We call on international intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations (UN, OSCE, CE, ICRC) to use all available tools for monitoring and documenting russian crimes and human rights violations against Ukrainian prisoners of war on the territory of the russian federation and the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

We recognize the importance of using such international mechanisms as the Institute of the Protecting Power and the Mixed Medical Commissions, which will allow to carry out the functions provided for by the Third Geneva Convention: to visit prisoners of war in all places of their stay, to monitor their conditions of detention and work, proper treatment, to provide them with medical assistance (in particular in order to prevent possible disability and cases of death), ensure the transportation of individual or collective parcels, correspondence, as well as provide the opportunity to organize in neutral countries the hospitalisation of sick and wounded prisoners of war, the repatriation or internment of able-bodied prisoners of war who have undergone a long period of captivity.

We appeal to the international community to assist in the implementation of international mechanisms that will help ease the fate of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian hostages and return them home.