On 24 February 2025— exactly three years after the Russian Federation’s fullscale invasion of Ukraine— an unprecedented coalition of Russian and Ukrainian human-rights defenders launched “People First,” a campaign that seeks to place human beings, rather than territory or geopolitics, at the centre of every future negotiation to end the war. Convened by the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize co-laureates – Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties (CCL) and Russia’s Memorial Human Rights Center – and joined by more than forty organisations from five continents, People First has set out one overriding priority: the immediate release of all captives arising from the war.
THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEM
The numbers are staggering. According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), as of August 2024 Russia was holding 1,372 people on politically motivated charges, many of them Russians jailed simply for protesting the invasion. Ukrainian civil-society groups estimate that “thousands” of Ukrainian civilians remain in Russian custody; countless others have been convicted in what Kyiv and international observers call “sham trials” in occupied territories.
On the battlefield, both Moscow and Kyiv acknowledge detaining thousands of prisoners of war (POWs). Added to this are at least 19,000 Ukrainian children who, according to the Ukrainian government, were forcibly transferred to Russia or Russian-occupied areas—an act that constitutes the war crime of deportation under the Fourth Geneva Convention. For this, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova. Since then, some of the children have been reunited with their families in Ukraine.
By any measure, these figures represent the largest population of conflict-related detainees on European soil since the Balkan wars of the 1990s. “These are living, breathing people who need to be released unconditionally or exchanged as soon as possible,” Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch told journalists at the campaign’s online press conference. “Negotiations may take a very long time, but for the captives every day is an eternity.”
A COMMON FRONT ACROSS ENEMY LINES
The fact that Russian and Ukrainian activists are working side by side is itself historic. Since the closing of independent media and the criminalisation of anti-war speech inside Russia, cross-border cooperation has been perilous. Yet the architects of People First argue that solidarity among civil societies is precisely what the Kremlin fears most. “The repression at home and the aggression abroad are two sides of the same coin,” explained Mariana Katzarova, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Russian Federation, who endorsed the campaign. “Without dismantling the machinery of repression inside Russia, lasting peace in Ukraine will remain elusive.”
Memorial, outlawed in Russia in 2021 and re-established in exile, contributes detailed prisoner lists and archival expertise. The Kyivbased CCL, which has spent a decade documenting war crimes in eastern Ukraine, provides first-hand testimonies from newly liberated territories. International partners such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Poland’s Helsinki Foundation and the US-based Human Rights First offer legal, diplomatic and media outreach.
A SIX-POINT PROGRAMME
People First’s demands, published on its website (people1st.online), condense hundreds of pages of humanrights law into six clear calls: 1. Immediate, unconditional release and safe return of all Ukrainian civilians held by Russia, including those convicted by occupation courts.
2. Repatriation of all children transferred or deported to Russia or Russian-occupied areas.
3. Return of deported Ukrainian convicts and patients of closed institutions such as nursing homes or psychiatric hospitals.
4. Completion of POW exchanges “as soon as possible and no later than the end of active hostilities,” in accordance with the Third Geneva Convention.
5. Release of all Russian political prisoners jailed for anti-war speech, with full freedom of movement abroad if they so choose.
6. Establishment of an independent international mechanism to monitor compliance, report publicly and guarantee unhindered access for the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The legal basis is straightforward. Under the Geneva Conventions, POWs must be released and repatriated “without delay after the cessation of active hostilities.” Civilians and children enjoy even stronger protections against deportation or arbitrary detention. “What is often forgotten,” notes British scholar Mary Kaldor in The Nation, “is that humanitarian obligations do not begin after a treaty is signed; they operate throughout the conflict. A cease-fire without a release of captives would violate the laws of war.”
PRESSURE AHEAD OF TALKS
Although there is no official peace process, diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic increasingly talk of a mediated settlement in 2025. People First aims to shape the agenda early, insisting that prisoner issues be treated as nonnegotiable humanitarian imperatives rather than bargaining chips. The campaign’s slogan – “No deals about land until lives are saved”– echoes past initiatives such as the “All-forAll” exchange during the 2015 Minsk process, which stalled amid mutual distrust.
The activists’ leverage comes from three sources. First, moral authority: Memorial and the CCL are globally respected, their leaders Oleksandra Matviichuk and Oleg Orlov seen as heirs to Sakharov and Havel. Second, documentation: painstaking case files can underpin future war-crimes trials, raising the cost of non-compliance. Third, public opinion: in Ukraine, families of POWs have staged weekly rallies outside the presidential office, while polls show that 67 percent of Russians sympathise with return of their conscripted soldiers.
Moscow’s reaction has been muted so far. The Foreign Ministry dismissed the UN Special Rapporteur’s statement as “biased” but did not comment directly on People First. Some Russian officials quietly point to more than 500 captured Russian soldiers already exchanged, suggesting that limited channels remain open. Kyiv, for its part, says it would welcome a thirdparty monitoring body and is prepared for simultaneous releases.
RISKS AND CHALLENGES
Sceptics note that previous appeals—from the OSCE, the ICRC and the Vatican—have yielded only incremental progress. Russia still denies the ICRC full access to many detention sites, and Ukrainian authorities face their own accusations of mistreating Russian POWs.
A sustainable mechanism would require political buy-in from major powers such as China, the United States and the EU, none of whom have yet endorsed People First publicly.
There is also the danger of hostage diplomacy. As the number of Western nationals arrested in Russia rises (among them Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich), swapping detainees risks creating incentives for future arrests. People First addresses this by calling for systemic solutions— transparent lists, family notification, medical care—rather than ad-hoc trades.
Still, human-rights advocates argue that imperfect progress is better than none. “Every release proves that pressure works,” says Oleksandra Matviichuk, who heads the CCL. “Behind each statistic is a story: a mother waiting for her son, a child longing for home. We cannot wait for politicians to draw new borders before we act.”
What happens next?Over the coming months People First plans a multi-pronged campaign: petitions to parliaments, side-events at the UN Human Rights Council, and a travelling photo exhibition titled “Faces of Captivity.” Legal teams will file strategic cases before the European Court of Human Rights (from which Russia has withdrawn but whose judgments still shape European policy) and the International Criminal Court. Tech volunteers are building an encrypted database that lets families track inquiries anonymously – crucial in Russia, where contacting authorities can invite harassment.
Perhaps most significantly, the coalition wants to re-frame the narrative of the war. “This conflict is often discussed in abstractions – ‘buffer zones,’ ‘security guarantees,’” says Yevgeniy Zakharov of Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. “We are reminding the world that war is, above all, about people deprived of freedom and dignity. Put them first, and real security will follow.”
Whether this moral logic can bend the arc of diplomacy remains to be seen. But on the bleak anniversary of an invasion that has destroyed towns, families and innocence, the emergence of a unified, cross-border movement offers a sliver of hope. It is a reminder that even amid the ruins, Russians and Ukrainians can still speak a common language – the language of human rights – and that sometimes the shortest path to peace begins with opening a prison door.
