The legal term "war" is important for its content, since it implies the status of a combatant and the possibility of exchanging prisoners of war (POWs), Chairman of the Supreme Court Stanislav Kravchenko said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

Answering a question about the importance of the fact that Ukraine calls the war a war in the legal sense, Kravchenko said: "The content is important in the fact that we call the war a war."

According to him, Putin called military aggression the so-called "special military operation" for a reason. "Our reaction was very important," the head of the court added.

He said that at the beginning of full-scale aggression at that time, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova initiated a meeting at which, in particular, the question was raised about whether Ukraine should call a spade a spade. Kravchenko explained that the term "war" implies combatant status for those who participate in hostilities.

"At late February - early March 2022, we already had up to 70 Russian POWs in the register of pretrial investigations. This meant that law enforcement officers and judges had only 72 hours to make a decision regarding these persons. Therefore, it was very important to determine the definitions in order to prevent a disaster," the head of the Supreme Court said.

Thus, according to him, since the beginning of March 2022, Russian military personnel have already received the status of combatants and have been detained in this status according to the norms of the Geneva Convention.

"Thanks to the term 'combatant,' POW swaps became possible. These swaps included those prosecuted for committing war crimes, and not just for participating in hostilities. In particular, the same Shishimarin [a Russian serviceman who was sentenced by a Ukrainian court to a 15-year prison term for killing a civilian]," the head of the Supreme Court added.