Russia UN report: Dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war killed

SDA

3.2.2025 - 18:15

ARCHIVE - Graves of Ukrainian soldiers who have died since the beginning of the Russian invasion can be seen at the Lychakiv cemetery. Photo: Mykola Tys/AP/dpa
ARCHIVE - Graves of Ukrainian soldiers who have died since the beginning of the Russian invasion can be seen at the Lychakiv cemetery. Photo: Mykola Tys/AP/dpa
Keystone

The UN Human Rights Office deplores a sharp increase in the killing of captured Ukrainian soldiers by the Russian army. Since the end of August, the human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine has recorded 79 executions in 24 cases, the office announced. Many Ukrainians who had surrendered or were in the hands of the Russians had been shot on the spot.

Keystone-SDA

The mission also documented that an injured and incapacitated Russian soldier was killed by Ukrainian forces.

According to the UN office, it analyzed video and film material from Ukrainian and Russian sources and interviewed witnesses. The time and location of the incidents indicated that such shootings occurred mainly where Russian troops were advancing during their offensive. The reports were classified as credible.

Verification of the acts takes a long time

This represents a sharp increase compared to previous periods, said a spokesperson for the monitoring mission on request. The verification of such acts takes a very long time. Between December 2023 and August 2024, 13 incidents were confirmed in which 30 Ukrainian military personnel were killed.

The head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Danielle Bell, said that such acts do not happen in a vacuum. "Public figures in the Russian Federation have explicitly called for inhumane treatment and even execution of captured Ukrainian military personnel," she said, according to the statement. International humanitarian law prohibits orders such as not taking prisoners, threatening to do so to the enemy or conducting combat operations on this basis.