The definition of mercenary for POW purposes requires that the mercenary not be from the country which the armed forces are from. Russian guy fighting for Russian military via PMC is not a mercenary. Polish guy fighting for Ukranian military via PMC could be.

You're right in that a trial should be conducted but given that there's plenty of Ukrainians uploading videos of them torturing Russian POWs, I think we're well past that point.

[–] Dolores@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago

you could also say the folding of the ukrainian foreign legion into the territorial defense forces formally makes them not mercenaries with an equal legal footing. either we stringently follow the geneva conventions and there are no mercenaries on either side, or we call a spade a spade