KYIV: Ukraine has launched a war crimes investigation after two separate reports of Russian troops shooting captured Ukrainian soldiers appeared, Western media reported on Sunday.
Ukraine’s army has posted a video made from the air of what it claimed was a Russian soldier shooting two Ukrainian soldiers.
In the video, two soldiers labelled as Ukrainians could be seen advancing towards another soldier labelled as Russian in a trench.
Ukraine’s ground forces in a Telegram a post accompanying the video said that: This morning… the Russians once again showed their attitude to international humanitarian law by shooting two Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General later said it had started an investigation into possible war crimes based on the footage. It added the incident took place near the village of Vesele in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
The prosecutor also said it was investigating reports of the alleged shooting of six injured Ukrainian soldiers left behind during Kyiv’s withdrawal from Avdiivka.
Russian forces accused of shooting six injured Ukrainian soldiers
Another Telegram channel, which is very close to the Ukrainian army, reported that Russian forces had shot six wounded Ukrainian soldiers, most likely on Thursday, who were too badly injured to vacate their positions during the hasty exit from the town.
It said their fellow soldiers had recognized their bodies on a video posted on Russian social media.
Moscow and Kyiv have been accusing each other of violating global humanitarian law by killing prisoners of since war between Ukraine and Russia started two years ago.
The United Nations has condemned cases of summary executions of captured Ukrainian soldiers as well as torture during the conflict.
