The Prosecutor General's Office has opened an investigation into a video that purportedly shows Russian soldiers shooting three captured and unarmed Ukrainian servicemen in Kherson Oblast, the office announced on April 7.
The video was published on Russian Telegram channels on April 7, according to a statement by the Prosecutor General's Office released on Telegram.
Killing of POWs violates the Geneva Convention and constitutes a war crime.
The description of the video states the incident took place near Krynky village in Kherson Oblast.
In the video, several shots are fired by a Russian Armed Forces member at the unarmed and unmoving Ukrainian servicemen, according to the Prosecutor General's Office's statement.
Ukraine's Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said in a Telegram post that he had filed official letters with the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross about the incident.
"The killing of prisoners of war is a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War and a grave international crime. Such cases, unfortunately, are not isolated and are a systematic practice of an insidious enemy," Lubinets wrote. "The world community must send a clear signal to Russia that the traces of war crimes cannot be hidden."
As of March 18, Ukraine had collected pretrial information on over 128,000 victims of war crimes, according to Veronika Plotnikova, the head of the Coordinating Center for Support of Victims and Witnesses of the Prosecutor General's Office.
Elsa Court
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