The number of Ukrainian soldiers executed by Russian forces immediately after their surrender is continuously increasing, according to a CNN report, which has also released a video of a recent incident recorded last week in the Pokrovsk region.
Ukrainian military intelligence sources provided CNN with a list of 15 executions of prisoners since November 2023, most of which were confirmed by video and audio recordings obtained from drones, reports A2.
At the same time, on September 3, a Telegram channel published information about the murder of surrendered Ukrainian soldiers by the Russians. The message stated that three soldiers from one of the Armed Forces brigades emerged from the basement of a building with their hands up, but the Russians then turned them face down and executed them by shooting them in the back, reports A2.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin told CNN that his agency is investigating 28 such incidents since the beginning of the war, in which a total of 62 Ukrainian soldiers were killed.
The Ukrainian prosecution told the American media that they consider these killings as war crimes and a plan organized by the Kremlin.
“If prisoners of war are surrendered, if they appear to be surrendering, if they have no weapons in their hands, then shooting them to execute is a war crime,” Kostin told CNN, according to A2.
According to the Prosecutor General, such crimes have been committed in various regions of Ukraine by different units, which gives Ukraine “the opportunity to claim that such a policy is organized by the Kremlin.” “This is an order from specific commanders,” he said, as cited by A2.
The Ukrainian official who provided the drone footage of the executions in Pokrovsk said that his unit is aware of several similar incidents on the front lines that have not yet been made public or investigated. Some Russian soldiers have already been brought to court charged with such killings, including one in the Zaporizhzhia region.
A UN investigation source told CNN that some of the visible executions of Ukrainian soldiers are being examined. “There are many of them. There is a pattern. It includes at least approval or an order not to show mercy,” said the interviewee, referring to the practice of killing prisoners.
