The United Kingdom told the OSCE on Wednesday that members of Ukraine’s armed forces are lawful combatants and not terrorists. Colonel Joby Rimmer, the UK Senior Military Advisor at the UK Delegation to the OSCE, delivered the statement in Vienna on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 2026.

Rimmer said Russia has repeatedly misrepresented Ukraine’s forces in the OSCE meeting. He said that last week Russia called support for Ukraine’s defense “financing of terrorism.” According to the UK statement, Ukrainian troops are exercising their country’s right of self-defense, and calling that terrorism does not change the legal position.

The statement describes Russia’s full-scale invasion as a clear violation of the UN Charter. It says international law allows other countries to support Ukraine’s defense. It also says international humanitarian law, the body of rules that governs conduct in war, applies to all parties.

Rimmer said members of Ukraine’s regular armed forces, other than medical staff and chaplains, are combatants with the right to take part directly in hostilities. If captured, he said, they are entitled to prisoner-of-war status under the Third Geneva Convention. He said captors must treat them humanely and cannot punish them simply because they fought in the conflict. In his words, a terrorism label does not remove that status or justify denying them legal protections.

The statement contrasted how each side treats captured fighters. Rimmer said the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission has regular, unimpeded access to official internment facilities in Ukrainian-controlled territory. He said Russia continues to deny independent monitors comparable access to Ukrainian prisoners held in Russia and Russian-occupied areas. He said more than 96% of the 853 Ukrainian prisoners of war the mission interviewed reported torture or ill-treatment in Russian captivity.

Rimmer also cited a March report to the UN Human Rights Council by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. He said the commission found that Russian courts, and courts in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, prosecuted Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war on charges including terrorism. According to Rimmer, the commission found the proceedings denied basic fair-trial guarantees and systematically relied on evidence that was fabricated or obtained through torture or ill-treatment. He said the commission concluded that the resulting grave breaches of humanitarian law were war crimes.

Rimmer said Russia calls its war a “special military operation” to deny that it is an international armed conflict and to avoid the protections owed to Ukrainian prisoners. He said the law applies according to the facts.

He also addressed the shared wartime sacrifice of Russians and Ukrainians in the defeat of Nazism, noting that millions from across the Soviet Union died. He said that sacrifice should be honored but cannot be used to justify Russia’s aggression today.

Rimmer said Russia can end the war at any time by withdrawing its forces from Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory. He said the UK will stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” in pursuit of what he called a just and lasting peace. The statement does not report any response from Russia.