Kyiv says Russia has executed 93 Ukrainian prisoners since the war began

Belousov said that about 80 percent of executions were recorded this year, but that the number of executions began to rise in November "when there were changes for the worse in the attitude of Russian soldiers towards our prisoners of war."

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Illustration, Photo: Reuters
Illustration, Photo: Reuters
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

Ukraine has documented evidence related to the execution of 93 Ukrainian prisoners of war, according to a law enforcement official tasked with investigating war crimes related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Jurij Belousov, who heads the department of the General Prosecutor's Office in charge of investigating crimes committed in armed conflicts, presented the latest figure during a televised appearance on October 4.

"Now we have information about the death of 93 of our soldiers who were executed on the battlefield," Belousov told Yediny Novini, a show that combines several Ukrainian television channels.

Belousov said that about 80 percent of executions were recorded this year, but that the number of executions began to rise in November "when there were changes for the worse in the attitude of Russian soldiers towards our prisoners of war."

The attorney general's office announced on October 1 that it had opened an investigation into what it described as the "largest mass execution" of Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian troops since the full-scale invasion of Moscow began in February 2022.

According to an official statement published on the Telegram channel, Russian forces recently killed 16 Ukrainian "prisoners of war" near the villages of Nikolayevka and Suhi Yar in the Pokrovsk district of the Donetsk region.

Videos that have been circulating on various Telegram channels appear to show Ukrainian soldiers, freshly captured by Russian troops, emerging from a wooded area.

After the prisoners line up, Russian forces appear to open fire. The footage then shows Russian soldiers approaching those who were only wounded and shooting them again at close range with machine guns.

The videos have not been independently verified.

According to international humanitarian law, the execution of soldiers who have surrendered is considered a war crime.

Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said he had contacted both the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross over the deaths, citing violations of the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of prisoners of war.

In March, the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine released a report documenting the execution of at least 32 Ukrainian prisoners of war in 12 separate cases between December 2023 and February 2024.

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