War in Ukraine: For the first time since the Cold War, the Dutch army is testing a camp for 2,000 Russian prisoners of war, in the event of a conflict with Moscow

A first since the Cold War. The Royal Dutch Army is testing this week a prisoner of war camp capable of housing up to 2,000 captured Russian soldiers, according to Algemeen Dagblad and NL Times. The exercises take place at the Marnehuizen training ground in the province of Groningen.

A camp deployable in seven days

The tested system provides an operational infrastructure within one week. To speed up deployment, the army plans to call on civilian companies specializing in large event installations – those that set up festival stages. The prisoners would be housed in small white barracks, in bunk beds, at a rate of twenty people per room, officers and soldiers alike. The camp would have walking areas, collective showers, a canteen and a medical station. Telephones would be confiscated, but postal mail would remain authorized.

Surveillance by drones, without watchtowers

Exit the watchtowers: camp security relies on cameras reactive to movements and sounds, supplemented by drones transmitting images in real time to a control center. This technological choice reflects lessons from contemporary operations, where digital surveillance has proven to be more reliable and less expensive than traditional physical devices.

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“No worse than our own soldiers”

General Nicole de Wolf, commander of the Land Forces Operational Support Command, set out a clear principle: “They can count on living conditions at least equivalent to those of our own soldiers”. This declaration is part of the obligations of the Geneva III Convention of August 12, 1949 relating to the treatment of prisoners of war. In the event of conflict, the captives would be transported away from the front, registered, interrogated, then detained until a possible exchange – in accordance with NATO standards.

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Réarmement européen accéléré

This exercise is part of the general rearmament of the European members of the Atlantic Alliance. The German-Dutch corps must strengthen the defense of the Baltic countries as part of a new NATO structure aimed at accelerating the deployment of forces against Russia, particularly in Latvia and Estonia. The fact that the Netherlands is concretely preparing to welcome thousands of captured Russian soldiers reinforces the credibility of a hypothesis that has long been ruled out: that of a major conflict in Europe.