““These actions must not go unpunished, and the enemy must bear full responsibility. Russia is a terrorist country that violates all the rules and customs of war.””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Dmytro Lubinets, called the actions of the Russian military a gross violation of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War. He appealed to the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross to investigate what happened.
“These actions must not go unpunished, and the enemy must bear full responsibility. Russia is a terrorist country that violates all the rules and customs of war. The international community should not turn a blind eye to such crimes,” Lubinets wrote in a telegram.
According to international humanitarian law, the shooting of surrendering soldiers is a war crime.
The Russian side did not comment on the news about the execution of the prisoners.
Reports of murders, torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war are regularly reported. On October 2, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office began an investigation into the killing of 16 Ukrainian prisoners by Russian soldiers in the Donetsk region.
In general, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have at their disposal information about the murder of at least 93 Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian soldiers, Yuriy Belousov, head of the Department for Combating Crimes Committed in Armed Conflict, reported on October 4.
According to him, 80% of cases of executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war were recorded in 2024, but the trend began to appear in November 2023, when “changes took place in the attitude of Russian servicemen towards our prisoners of war for the worse.”