Volodymyr Srebrodolskyy, a Ukrainian soldier, appeared in a Russian propaganda video where he expressed a desire for the war to end quickly and said he did not want to return to Ukraine. The video, posted on the messaging app Telegram, was later used by residents of Srebrodolskyy’s hometown, Karpylivka, in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, where some called him a traitor. Others defended him, noting he had volunteered for the war. Srebrodolskyy died in captivity weeks after the video was shared. His body was buried in a city cemetery 60 miles from his home, away from a section where other service members are buried, after his neighbors threatened the village mayor with violence if he allowed Srebrodolskyy to be buried in the town’s cemetery. An autopsy found he died from a stab wound to the stomach, and a criminal investigation into his death was launched by Ukraine’s Donetsk prosecutor’s office. The mayor of Karpylivka denied responsibility for the lack of a local burial. Thousands of similar videos have been posted on Russian social media and even aired on state-run television. These videos follow a pattern where Ukrainian prisoners of war denounce their commanders, express a wish not to return home, and hope the war ends soon. These recordings are made inside a detention system the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has found to be systematically abusive. In interviews with over 850 Ukrainian prisoners of war, 96% reported suffering torture or mistreatment, including beatings, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, and mock executions. Over half of Russian prisoners of war have also reported mistreatment to U.N. investigators. The United Nations has condemned the use of such videos by both sides, but unlike Russia, Ukraine allows monitoring groups full access to the facilities housing prisoners, which the U.N. says meet the Geneva Conventions. Human rights organizations have urged Russia to stop broadcasting videos of prisoners of war since the early days of its full-scale invasion. According to Aisling Reidy, a senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch, the Geneva Conventions require that prisoners of war be protected from being objects of public curiosity or from intimidation and humiliation. The Media Initiative for Human Rights, a Ukrainian nonprofit, has documented 240 detention facilities holding Ukrainians on occupied and Russian territory. These videos can serve as proof of a soldier’s status as a prisoner of war, especially when there is no official Russian accounting. Yevhen Shybalov, a former Ukrainian soldier, was captured by Russian forces in May 2022 and endured seven months of captivity, during which he was beaten and tortured, losing over 30 pounds. He was eventually released in a prisoner exchange in December 2022. He said he was considered a high-value prisoner because he was from the east, had been a journalist, and worked with international organizations. During an interview with Russia Today, a government-controlled media outlet, he was threatened with being returned to his interrogators. The video of his interview helped place him on an exchange list by confirming he was a prisoner of war rather than missing in action. Shybalov described the Russian propaganda industry as a well-organized system that relies on interrogations and interviews with prisoners of war as its raw materials. He said all former prisoners he stays in touch with have had to participate in filming, and that the Russians use media, culture, language, and religion as tools of influence. He described the process as sophisticated and well-resourced, involving thousands of people. Volodymyr Srebrodolskyy was held in a detention facility in Chystiakove, a city previously known as Torez, which has been occupied by Russian forces since 2014. The facility was built to hold 1,200 prisoners. Among them was Mykola Shustrov, an army medic captured in Mariupol during Russia’s siege in 2022. Shustrov spent nearly three years in Russian captivity, being moved between facilities. He described how prisoners were forced to learn the Russian anthem and were beaten if they could not answer questions about it. He also described how a video crew arrived and questioned prisoners for compromising information on the Ukrainian army. Srebrodolskyy arrived in Shustrov’s cell in late 2024, in severe pain. He had been badly beaten after failing to recite the Russian anthem, and his stomach was swollen and tender from the assault. Shustrov spent the night speaking with him to distract him from the pain. An ambulance took him away in the morning, but it was too late to save his life. He was not the first person Shustrov watched die in captivity. Shustrov, who was released in a February 2025 prisoner exchange, expressed anger over the village’s reaction to Srebrodolskyy’s video. He said the only fact that could be taken from it was that the person was alive at the time of filming.