Russian war crimes: Execution of Ukrainian POWs captured on video
The Russians executed two Ukrainian prisoners of war, reports CNN. The station published two videos. In one of them, three kneeling Ukrainian soldiers are seen, who fall to the ground a few seconds later. Others, lying face down, were executed in May.
American station CNN published a video on Friday showing the execution of surrendering Ukrainian soldiers carried out by Russian soldiers. The recording was made at the end of August near Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.
In the video received from Ukrainian military intelligence, three soldiers are seen walking to the middle of a dirt path and kneeling with their hands behind their heads. A few seconds later, they are lying motionless, face down.
"Russian barbarism is a disgrace to humanity"
The Russians allegedly carried out the second execution in the Robotyne area in May. The video shows Ukrainians coming out of the trenches with their hands raised. The soldiers lie face down. Then, according to the video, a Russian soldier with the pseudonym "Turk" gives the order to shoot them.
A Ukrainian official, who asked for some details to be kept confidential to protect the identity of the unit, said that the event shown corresponds to other alleged executions that have become increasingly frequent this year.
Sources in Ukrainian intelligence provided CNN with a list of 15 cases of alleged killing of surrendering Ukrainian soldiers by Russian soldiers. These events occurred in November and are mostly supported by video or audio recordings.
The Ukrainian prosecutor general told CNN that his office is investigating 28 similar incidents that have occurred since the beginning of the war and in which 62 Ukrainian soldiers have died.
Executions are a Kremlin strategy
Russian forces are moving towards the strategic city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine despite recent territorial gains by Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region in western Russia during an offensive that was intended to force Moscow to redeploy some forces from Donbas to protect its own borders.
Ukrainian prosecutors told CNN that the alleged killings of prisoners constitute war crimes and are part of the Kremlin's strategy. "If prisoners of war surrender, if they show that they surrender, if they are without weapons in their hands, then summary execution is a war crime," said Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin to CNN.
According to him, such crimes have occurred in various parts of Ukraine and have been carried out by different Russian units. With these actions, Ukraine has "an opportunity to claim that such policy could be (elevated) to crimes against humanity. This policy is orchestrated by Kremlin. It’s an order of specific commanders," he said.
The Russian Ministry of Defence did not respond to CNN's request for comment.
Executions "correspond to a specific pattern"
"The emergence of videos showing what appears to be a growing Russian tactic has presented a dilemma for Ukrainian commanders, who face the unenviable task of warning their troops and the world of Russian savagery, at the risk of sapping already drained Ukrainian morale," writes CNN.
A Ukrainian government official who provided the video from the Pokrovsk area said that the Ukrainian unit knew about similar cases on the front line that were not made public.
Several Russian soldiers have been accused in Ukraine of such killings, including in the Zaporizhzhia region in the south of the country.
A source in the UN team investigating illegal, mass, or arbitrary executions told CNN that they had also analyzed alleged executions of Ukrainian soldiers. There are many of them. They correspond to a specific pattern. They indicate ease, if not orders, not to show mercy, said this source.
