Hello, this is Michelle. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, thousands of Ukrainian fighters and civilians have been detained, although it is difficult to know exactly how many.

Oleksii Anulia is one of the POWs freed in one of the many prisoner swaps between the warring nations. He was in Geneva to recount the torture he endured during his time in Russian custody, a practice that UN human rights experts have described as systematic.

Michelle Langrand

26.07.2024

On our radar

Photo article

Ukrainian soldiers and Oleksii and Mikhailo Anulia at the Palais des Nations in Geneva for an event on human rights violations committed by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, 8 July 2024. (Geneva Solutions/Michelle Langrand)

Oleksii Anulia has the body build one would expect from a kickboxing champion. It was hard to believe that the tall person standing in the hallways of the Palais des Nations in Geneva, a year and a half ago, was a frail body with protruding ribs, as seen in the picture he held up in his smartphone. The 31-year-old from the Chernihiv region was among the many Ukrainians who joined the military in February 2022 to resist the Russian invasion. He was also among the unlucky ones to be captured by the enemy forces, being a prisoner of war from 9 March 2022 until a swap of 140 Ukrainian POWs on New Year’s Eve of the same year.

During his 10 months of captivity, Annulia was starved, beaten and tortured to the point of resulting in 36 hospitalisations since his release, he said. Despite that, Annulia told Geneva Solutions that “he has no time to feel depressed”. “Fighting for the release of those who are still captive keeps me strong,” he said. That’s what brought him to Geneva earlier this month for the United Nations Human Rights Council’s summer session at the invitation of the Oslo-based Human Rights Research League.

Read the full story on Geneva Solutions.

Reason for hope

Clues to a possible cure for Aids. As the International Aids Conference kicked off earlier this week in Munich, the question of a cure was stirring a particular interest after the revelation of a seventh individual to reach apparently permanent remission from HIV infection after a bone-marrow transplant to treat leukaemia. What is more puzzling is a case from last year in Geneva, in which the donor had completely normal CCR5 proteins.

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