KYIV — Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case against Russia for war crimes in Ukraine on Thursday after a video emerged showing Russian soldiers executing six unarmed Ukrainian prisoners of war in the Donetsk region.
The case is the latest in which Moscow’s troops have summarily killed Ukrainian POWs, with Kyiv saying such incidents have increased sharply in the last year.
“During an assault on the positions of Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk region, the invaders captured six servicemen of the Defense Forces of Ukraine and subsequently shot them,” the Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
“The execution of prisoners of war is a serious violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War and is classified as a grave international crime,” the prosecutors added.
Earlier Thursday, Telegram channels spread a video showing Russian soldiers taking turns methodically shooting unarmed Ukrainian troops in the back one by one. “Leave one for me,” one of the Russian soldiers says as a seventh Ukrainian POW is seen lying on the ground. Then the video stops. POLITICO could not independently verify the video.
Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets has filed a war crime claim over the video with the United Nations and the International Red Cross. “The Russian army has never been famous for its dignified treatment of prisoners of war, and now it is once again demonstrating its helplessness and criminality,” Lubinets said in a statement Thursday.
“The lack of responsibility has turned these crimes into a system. We cannot turn a blind eye to this!” the ombudsman said. “Ukraine needs justice and responsibility for those who commit crimes and do not adhere to any norms.”
The number of executions of Ukrainian POWs on the battlefield has increased significantly, Lubinets said in December, soon after a video appeared of Russian soldiers shooting five disarmed Ukrainian POWs. Kyiv has recorded a total of 177 executions of Ukrainian POWs by Russian forces since the start of the invasion in 2022.
“Russians are either trying to tie all Russian soldiers by blood so that they did not surrender to Ukrainians or they are trying to show complete disregard to the international law,” Lubinets told journalists in November 2024.
Officially the Kremlin denies any mistreatment of POWs. However, Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov has several times publicly ordered his soldiers not to take prisoners in Ukraine and threatened to use Ukrainian prisoners as human shields against Ukrainian drone attacks.
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