Russian armed forces have reportedly killed an “alarming” number of captured Ukrainian troops, the United Nations’ Human Rights Monitoring Mission said on Monday.
The U.N. mission said there had been “a sharp rise in reported executions of Ukrainian soldiers captured by Russian armed forces,” with 79 killed in 24 separate incidents since the end of last August.
“Many Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered or were in physical custody of the Russian armed forces were shot dead on the spot,” the U.N. said. “Witness accounts also described the killings of unarmed and injured Ukrainian soldiers.”
The U.N. mission also documented the execution of a wounded and disabled Russian soldier by Ukrainian forces last year.
To come to its findings, the U.N. mission obtained and analyzed videos and photos released by sources on both sides showing executions or corpses, and also conducted in-depth interviews with witnesses. “Geolocated and chronolocated incidents indicate that the reported executions took place in areas where Russian offensive operations were underway,” the mission wrote in its statement.
Danielle Bell, the head of the U.N. mission, said “these incidents did not occur in a vacuum,” noting that public figures in Russia have explicitly called for inhumane treatment and execution of captured Ukrainian military personnel.
The U.N. has recorded at least three such calls by Russian officials in the past year, as well as a number of social media posts by military groups linked to Russian forces allegedly ordering or authorizing executions.
“Combined with broad amnesty laws, such statements have the potential to incite or encourage unlawful behavior,” Bell said.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case against Russia for war crimes in Ukraine after footage emerged showing Russian soldiers executing six unarmed Ukrainian POWs in the Donetsk region.
In December, Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said that the number of executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war on the battlefield had increased significantly.
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