 During this war between two countries experiencing great socioeconomic difficulties, and often unable to care for their own populations, the treatment of prisoners of war was far from adequate, with tens of thousands on both sides dying of communicable diseases.Between 16,000 to 20,000 of Soviet POWs – out of 80,000 – died in Polish camps; and about 20,000 – out of 51,000 – Polish POWs died in Soviet and Lithuanian camps.. Russian professor Matveyev from Moscow National University pointed another numbers that within 60,000 up to 83,500 Russian POWs died in Polish prisoner camps out of 206.877 Soviet Russian POWs.After 1922 Polish and Russian prisoners were exchanged between the two sides.