Reporter's notebook: Visiting a POW camp is the strongest antidote to sympathy for Russian soldiers

The Kyiv Independent · 28.10.2026, 17:57:43

Once our eyes adjusted to the aggressive glare of the freshly painted white walls around the yard, we began to make out figures, dozens of them dressed in navy blue, clinging to the inner walls of this surreal space. It was a scorching June day in western Ukraine, and we had just been released, like kids in a petting zoo, into a courtyard full of prisoners of war from the Russian military. Who we decided to walk up to and talk to, and what we wanted to talk about, was up to us. Whether these