Since the end of August 2024, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has recorded 79 cases of executions of captured Ukrainian soldiers by Russian armed forces in 24 separate incidents.
This is said in the Mission’s report published on Monday, February 3, Ukrinform reports.
It is noted that for the 24 incidents, the Mission obtained and analysed video and photo material published by Ukrainian and Russian sources showing executions or dead bodies. It also conducted detailed interviews with witnesses
“Geolocated and chronolocated incidents indicate that the reported executions took place in areas where Russian offensive operations were underway. These reports were assessed as credible,” the report says.
In this context, the UN stressed that “these incidents did not occur in a vacuum”.
“Public figures in the Russian Federation have explicitly called for inhumane treatment, and even execution, of captured Ukrainian military personnel. Combined with broad amnesty laws, such statements have the potential to incite or encourage unlawful behavior,” said Danielle Bell, Head of the Mission.
It is also noted that the mission allegedly documented the execution of “a wounded and incapacitated Russian soldier” by the Ukrainian forces.
The Mission stressed that international humanitarian law prohibits ordering that there shall be no survivors, threatening an adversary therewith, or conducting hostilities on this basis.
As reported by Ukrinform, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine called another execution of six Ukrainian prisoners of war by the Russian occupiers an atrocity and called on the international community to react decisively to each such case in order to put an end to it.
Source: UN records execution of 79 Ukrainian POWs by Russian forces since end of August
